Russia's strategy in war against Europe

Recently intercepted Russian fighter jets. Source

TLDR/Summary: Russia is waging an escalating hybrid war against Europe through drones, airspace violations, and infrastructure attacks, betting that European countries will avoid war at any cost. Russia expects weak, divided responses and hopes to force a deal: stop supporting Ukraine and lift sanctions or face continued aggression. This strategy exploits Europe’s military unpreparedness for drone warfare and political divisions. Europe must respond with clear deterrence: matching every Russian provocation with larger scale retaliation, or risk eventually facing the choice between surrender and full scale war. Only demonstrating strength can change Russia’s risk-reward calculations and prevent further escalation.

During the last year there were numerous attacks on the underwater infrastructure connecting European countries in the Baltic Sea. While itself threatening, a much more worrying trend is a growing pattern of escalating Russian military activities against Europe in the last month:

• 20-ish Russian drones fly into Polish airspace. Such large scale airspace violation doesn’t happen by accident.

• Soon after 3 MiG-31 fighter jets fly into Estonian airspace, spend 12 min near the capital. Planes from potentially the same group also fly close to Polish oil/gas drilling platforms. Both incidents are clear provocation testing NATO and a threat to infrastructure.

• During the last week I’d already lost count of drone reports above civilian airports and military bases in countries with access to the Baltic Sea. While some of it might be due to mass hysteria similar to that of 2024 in the US, there is evidence of deliberate sabotage caused either by Russian controlled ‘cargo’ ships with extended crews for operating drones, or from the nearby Russian warships, or both.

• Now Russia is accusing Ukraine of preparing a false-flag attack on Poland and Romania using repaired Russian drones. This is actually sort of funny, too many layers of deception. Clearly Russia is going/threatening to attack two NATO countries with false-flag operation claiming that their enemy is doing a false-flag...

At first glance it might seem like Russia keeps bothering the large beast of Europe. Economically, demographically, it seems like Europe is overwhelmingly stronger than Russia. Russia had ~140 mln people last year, compared to ~450 mln people in EU. Together with Ukraine, Norway and UK, that would be above 550 mln. EU’s GDP was ~20 tn $ compared to 2.1 tn $ in Russia.

Pattern is different in terms of raw military power. Russia has a much more militarized society. With back-of-the-napkin Math, counting major European armies together, including active reserves and Ukrainian army, I’m getting that Europe in wartime can deliver above 2.4 mln soldiers. Currently, Russian armed forces have about 3.5 m soldiers, of which 1.4 mln is active duty. But they could mobilize 5 mln trained people, and in case of WW2-level effort, up to 20 mln individuals.

These are hypothetical numbers though. And currently Russia is still tied up in Ukraine. Still, I’d say Russia is playing a high risk game where it might end up in a full scale war against Europe, which it has few chances of winning.

Why would Russia risk full out war with West that in a 1 on 1 fight it would obviously lose?

In all of mentioned incidents we observed reluctance of European powers to respond, or inability to respond. There was a whole debate on whether it’s ok to shoot down enemy’s fighter jets that are approaching a NATO country’s capital! When Estonians tried to seize a ship from Russian ‘shadow fleet’, Russian fighter planes appeared.

When Poland was attacked, only a few of the drones were shut down, and to target a $10-80k drone, Poland used F-16 and F-35 fighter jets with missiles that cost 400k to 1 mln $, which is unsustainable.

Russia is waging a hybrid war on Europe. It is a type of warfare where you don’t formally declare war, you deny your involvement, you cause as much confusion in the enemy as you can, you try to disrupt their will to fight, all while achieving your goals.

What makes Russia think that they will benefit from those actions, instead of facing a numerically superior enemy?

1. Russia expects that European societies aren’t ready for war and will try to avoid it at any cost.

2. In case there will be some fighting, they think that even though most of their troops are busy in Ukraine, they won’t need to fight a full scale war. This comes back to point 1, avoiding war at all cost from EU’s side. Like, who would start a war because of a few drones? Or if Russian troops take a city in Baltics, who would risk starting a WW3 with potential losses in millions for just one city? This is a kind of risk-averse logic Russia relies on.

3. They think that Western armies are weak, because they didn’t get deployed to a full scale war in decades, especially against an equal enemy. Moreover, these armies are slow in adopting newest tech of the Ukrainian war. That is: mass scale cheap FPV strike drones, platoon level reconnaissance quadcopters, regiment level and above reconnaissance wings; armored vehicle adaptation to drone warfare. As an example, EU only now, on the 3rd year of war started seriously working on anti-drone defense, and it might take more than a year from now to complete.

4. They think that West isn’t united and even if some countries do seriously respond, they won’t be supported by neither the whole NATO nor EU. Nobody is eager to fight Russia. Even Poland and Baltic states that clearly take the risk of Russian aggression seriously, openly state that they don’t want to make aggressive responses or send troops to Ukraine. Currently it looks like US would stay out of potential war. Hungary and Slovakia have governments that are sympathetic to Russia. Other countries have growing isolationist movements too.

5. Russia might count not on long term hybrid/full-scale war, but rather making a deal. They might want to pose a following choice: “fight us, or stop supporting Ukraine and then we will stop attacking you”.

For some time attacks will continue and will escalate. Decoy drones will be flying into NATO territory. Eventually combat ones will be amongst them. Military planes will be ‘accidentally’ entering EU airspace. If they get shot down, Russia will use this is an excuse to do more aggressive and open operations. Russian ships will keep deploying drones that will be disrupting EUs air traffic. Russian naval drones (copies of what Ukraine used to defeat Russian fleet in the Black sea) might start attacking EU’s oil and gas platforms in the Baltic sea, or even sinking some ships. Of course, Russia will publicly deny any relation to those attacks.

Russian troops might ‘accidentally’ enter NATO territory. It might be just a platoon. But if they get attacked by defending country, again, Russia will use it as an excuse to do a larger attack.

It’s a game of escalation, where bet is that: 1. European countries will do anything to avoid full scale war, 2. denial of Russia’s responsibility, pushing blame on third parties or saying that this ‘attacked country’s fault’ like with Ukraine, will give excuse to isolationist countries in the EU and NATO not to help the attacked country.

Honestly, I feel like Russia is going into a full Mad Max mode. They had shifted their economy and society into a war-time system. They justify their actions through ideology of restoring the ‘Great Russia’. And it’s arguably easier to keep the war machine running, than starting it in the first place (which is what Europe would need to do in case of a full scale war).

If the leaders of Russia decide to keep the war machine running, then it doesn’t matter if Europe doesn’t retaliate at all or does it only after long indecisiveness. Both weakness and any damage to Russian troops will be actively used as internal propaganda material and potentially a justification for a new army mobilization. Such mobilization, if supported economically and with equipment by China could give them enough reserves to fight both in Ukraine and with European states simultaneously.

At the same time, Russian diplomats will deliver messages to the European capitals offering a deal. Russia would stop attacking them if they stop supporting Ukraine and lift sanctions (the final demand might be dropped at negotiations, currently Ukraine is priority for Russia).

Expanding continental empires, that already decided on the pathway of military conquest instead of thriving via trade in the World with a rule of law, only understand strength.

I’ve already described above how even a military response, if too late, will be used by Russia to its advantage and won’t be a deterrence.

The only way to prevent further escalation of the hybrid war by Russia is to show strength. This is made of 2 steps:

One is European armies rapidly learning from Ukraine and adapting to new military tech, as well as preparing societies to large scale mobilization.

Second is by clear communication by European leaders, that any act of sabotage, aggression and other acts of hybrid warfare will have analogous and larger scale responses on the Russian soil. You send 20 drones? We will send 40. You cut internet cables? We will cut your electrical supply cables from power plant to Moscow. A ship is sunk by unknown drone? 2 Russian ships will be sunk by unknown drones. And so on.

While I admit that this sounds unusually harsh and maybe escalatory, such rhetoric and, critically, action will put direct price on any Russian acts of aggression. Once they see that this promise is delivered, their equation of risk/reward will change. After this Russia can only keep attacking Europe if they actually want a full scale war. In which case Europe has only two choices, to surrender or to fight.

I think fighting is worth it.