Russian hybrid warfare tactics: Will NATO’s defenses be next?

Please join the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and Transatlantic Security Initiative, in the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, for a public event evaluating Russian hybrid warfare tactics and the threat they pose to defense and deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank. This event will take place virtually on Tuesday, May 28, from 11am to 12pm ET.

In early May, Estonia’s foreign ministry summoned Tallinn’s Russian embassy chief after a Finnish airline paused flights to eastern Estonia due to GPS disturbances, for which it believes Russia to be the culprit. The incident is one of many, as countries in the region have experienced electronic signal jamming and other forms of hybrid aggression for years. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, nearly all airlines flying over the Baltics have experienced issues with their navigation.

Kremlin provocations against its NATO neighbors are not limited to signal jamming—the latest disruptions are part of a broader pattern of Russian provocations in the Baltics, and in other countries such as Sweden, Finland, and Poland. Russia regularly turns to hybrid aggression and other tactics below the threshold of war, breaching these countries’ air space and territorial waters, permitting or encouraging migrants from third countries to arrive in large numbers at their borders through Russia and Belarus, and in one instance, the kidnapping of an intelligence officer.

The Baltic states have been among the loudest voices in NATO pushing the Alliance to take necessary steps to counter the Russian threat since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With concerns around increasing levels of hybrid attacks by Russia, many believe that should Moscow win in Ukraine, defenses on NATO’s eastern flank will be the next to be tested.

How should we understand the persistence of hybrid attacks by Russia against countries in the Baltics, as well as other NATO allies in the region? What steps can NATO take to deter Russian attacks below the threshold of war? To answer these questions, the Atlantic Council will convene leading experts for a conversation on the mounting threat Russia’s hybrid warfare poses to the Alliance.

This event is part of the Atlantic Council’s NATO Washington Summit campaign. For more information and updates on future events and publications, follow @AtlanticCouncil.