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TALLINN, Estonia: Russian President Vladimir Putin is becoming \u201cincreasingly cavalier, dangerous and risk accepting,\u201d as his war in Ukraine drags on and as he seeks to divide Western allies, NATO\u2019s deputy commander in Europe said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Air Chief Marshal Sir John Stringer spoke to The Associated Press at a security conference in Estonia amid warnings from some European leaders that Moscow is planning to test NATO\u2019s collective defense pact with bolder attacks that have already included sabotage and espionage.<\/p>\n
Stringer warned that NATO members need to be aware of the \u201cfebrile environment\u201d and be careful in their response because Putin would like to provoke the alliance into an \u201coverreaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last week that Russia might target NATO nations with deliberate drone or missile strikes while claiming they were accidental. French President Emmanuel Macron agreed and has asked his government to prepare a plan to protect critical infrastructure against potential drone attacks and cyberattacks.<\/p>\n
Other European officials say the threat from Russia is serious but have called for calm.<\/p>\n
A British defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters, said the U.K. assessment is that Putin is not seeking direct confrontation with NATO. Officials in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia, have also been more cautious about the prospect of a serious escalation after years of calling on Western nations to adopt a more hawkish approach to Moscow.<\/p>\n
European countries have already faced multiple incursions of Russian drones \u2014 and several missiles \u2014 as well as a campaign of covert Russian disruption which began after Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
An AP interactive map tracking that campaign shows the escalation, from 59 incidents in March 2025 to more than 210 incidents ranging from vandalism, propaganda and influence operations to arson, sabotage and cyberattacks.<\/p>\n
Russia is already testing NATO defenses<\/strong><\/p>\n In August, German officials accused Moscow of being behind a plot at Leipzig airport where a drone with explosives was found next to a Ukrainian plane laden with jet fuel. Last month, British officials said they disrupted a Russian plot to sabotage a drone factory outside London. In August, an Estonian defense company was set on fire and a weapons storage facility in Bulgaria exploded, though neither has been publicly attributed to Russia.<\/p>\n Many saboteurs have been recruited online by Russia\u2019s intelligence services and some have no idea they are working for Moscow. That makes uncovering a plot challenging and attribution often difficult. When asked by the AP in May if Russia was waging a covert campaign against the West, Putin responded: \u201cName one proven fact.\u201d<\/p>\n The line between \u201caccidental and deliberate is quite a fine one,\u201d Stringer said, referring to incursions of drones sent off course into NATO airspace by Russian GPS jamming or other electronic countermeasures to defend against Ukrainian drone strikes.<\/p>\n It would be possible for Russia to escalate that activity but it does not mean Moscow has decided to do so, said Stringer, NATO\u2019s deputy supreme allied commander for Europe.<\/p>\n While there are \u201ca lot of different opinions as to how acute the threat is … Russia\u2019s attitude towards negligence\u201d and deliberately targeting NATO neighbors \u201cis almost the same,\u201d Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal told AP at the security conference.<\/p>\n Both Stringer and Michal suggested the increase in covert attacks by Moscow was not because of a failure by NATO nations to stop them but as a direct consequence of Western support for Ukraine.<\/p>\n Putin is trying to break NATO support for Ukraine, leaders say<\/strong><\/p>\n Putin, Stringer said, is \u201clooking at a whole number of things\u201d to try to create division between NATO allies because his campaign in Ukraine is going badly.<\/p>\n Michal likened the Russian leader to a \u201crat in the corner,\u201d who is escalating activity in Europe in an attempt to break Western support for Kyiv at a time when Moscow is under pressure.<\/p>\n Russia\u2019s gains on the front lines in Ukraine have been slow and at a steep cost of more than half a million dead, even as Kyiv\u2019s deep-strike campaign targeting the country\u2019s energy industry has caused fuel shortages in 80 of 83 Russian regions, Air Chief Marshall Sir Richard Knighton, chief of the U.K.\u2019s defense staff, said earlier this month. Still, there\u2019s no suggestion the Russian leader is backing away from his goals in Ukraine.<\/p>\n Putin is trying to undermine NATO\u2019s collective defense pact by testing nations with covert attacks that are hard to attribute, Michal said.<\/p>\n But the Estonian leader said it\u2019s currently \u201cimprobable,\u201d that Putin will launch a conventional military attack on Europe because of the threat of a NATO response and because his forces are tied down in Ukraine.<\/p>\n The high level of malign activity from Russia is \u201chere to stay\u201d until Putin changes his military goals, Michal said, adding that the best way to deter him is to \u201cback Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n