{"id":301177,"date":"2024-12-30T08:54:27","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T08:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=301177"},"modified":"2024-12-31T07:31:10","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T07:31:10","slug":"russias-hybrid-warfare-could-cause-substantial-casualties-senior-nato-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=301177","title":{"rendered":"Russia\u2019s hybrid warfare could cause \u2018substantial\u2019 casualties, senior NATO official says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Clark \u2013 Politico Dec 29, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Moscow’s campaign of hybrid warfare against NATO countries is getting close to the point of causing “substantial” casualties, a senior official at the defense alliance warned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat really worries me is that one of these attacks \u2026 will break through in a big way,\u201d James Appathurai, the military alliance\u2019s deputy assistant secretary general and head of hybrid and cyber threats, told<\/a> Sky News in an interview published Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a real prospect of one of these attacks<\/a> causing substantial numbers of casualties or very substantial economic damage,\u201d Appathurai said.<\/p>\n

Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a> in 2022, Russia has ramped up its campaign<\/a> of so-called hybrid attacks \u2014 such as arson, cyber and information campaigns, or sabotage \u2014 throughout Europe.<\/p>\n

Recent examples include the alleged cutting of energy and communications cables in the Baltic Sea<\/a>, which German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius described<\/a> as \u201csabotage.\u201d In that case, as in many other examples<\/a> of hybrid attacks, it is difficult for governments to quickly and definitively attribute the attacks to Moscow.<\/p>\n

Pistorius warned earlier this month<\/a> about the threat Russian President Vladimir Putin poses. “Putin is engaging in hybrid attacks, and\u00a0Germany\u00a0is particularly in focus,” Pistorius said in an interview with the\u00a0Funke media group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“He knows us well; Putin knows how to make pinpricks in us,” Pistorius said. “Ignoring this threat because it makes us uncomfortable will not make it smaller but rather larger<\/a>,” he added.<\/p>\n

Nordic countries have been on\u00a0high alert<\/a>\u00a0due to warnings from European intelligence agencies about potential Russian sabotage of power cables, wind turbines and gas pipelines.<\/p>\n

The number of these types of attacks<\/a> has reached a level that would previously have been considered \u201cutterly unacceptable,\u201d NATO’s Appathurai said. \u201cWe can definitely count dozens. Up to 100 for sure. But then there’s a lot of foiled plots,<\/a>\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine\u2019s presidential office, warned on Sunday<\/a> that Russia may escalate its hybrid warfare tactics beyond sabotage of European infrastructure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“It is worth considering the risks of hybrid threats<\/a> appearing on the borders,” Yermak wrote in a post on Telegram<\/a>. “The shadow fleet that sabotages cables may not be the only such threat<\/a> from the Russian Federation.”<\/p>\n

NATO is updating its strategy on hybrid warfare<\/a>, first written in 2015, so it can be clearer about what type of attacks would trigger a full-scale military response.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we need to do now is be clearer among ourselves and then decide how we communicate that also to the Russians, that there are no-go areas<\/a>,\u201d Appathurai said.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nordic countries have been on high alert due to warnings from European intelligence agencies about potential Russian sabotage of power cables, wind turbines and gas pipelines<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=301177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301178,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301177\/revisions\/301178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=301177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=301177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=301177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}