Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Western governments are struggling to respond to what they say is a growing Russian campaign of sabotage attempts including arson at military bases and civilian infrastructure across Europe. The goal of these \u201cgrey zone\u201d attacks, which security officials said were often led by Russian GRU military intelligence, is to promote disunity among Ukraine\u2019s allies, disrupt military supplies to Kyiv and test western resolve. \u201cRussia is trying to send a message that it is omnipotent and can disturb our societies\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009to instigate fear and to find ways to make our lives more miserable,\u201d Latvia\u2019s President Edgars Rink\u0113vi\u010ds told the Financial Times. \u201cIt is also testing our response, because if we don\u2019t respond these attacks are going to increase.\u201dHe said Nato allies were \u201ctrying to figure out\u201d how to respond short of invoking the military alliance\u2019s mutual defence clause known as Article 5. \u201cWe are not going to fire missiles at Russia because of a rather small-scale incident,\u201d he added.The issue has risen to the top of the agenda of Ukraine\u2019s western allies following recent incidents. These have included an alleged Russian-backed arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked warehouse in the UK, a sabotage plot against US-military bases in Germany, attempts to disrupt Europe\u2019s railway signal networks, and the jamming of GPS civil aviation navigation systems in the Baltics. Microsoft has warned that Russia is directing \u201cmalign disinformation\u201d against the Paris Olympic Games. Antony Blinken, US secretary of state, last week said \u201cvirtually every ally\u201d at a Nato meeting of foreign ministers in Prague raised the issue of \u201cthe Kremlin\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009intensifying its hybrid attacks against frontline states, Nato members, setting fire and sabotaging supply warehouses, disregarding sea borders and demarcations in the Baltics, mounting more and more cyber attacks, continuing to spread disinformation\u201d.\u201cWe know what they\u2019re up to, and we will respond both individually and collectively as necessary,\u201d Blinken added.Dutch defence minister Kajsa Ollongren said Moscow was trying \u201cto intimidate us\u201d and it was crucial that \u201cwe do not allow this to happen\u201d.The unresolved question is how. Russia, said one western defence adviser, has a highly developed lexicon for hybrid warfare and applies it systematically across all potential weapons, be that \u201cinformation, psychological operations or things that go bang\u201d. The west, by contrast, was so behind it even \u201clacks a vocabulary of what hybrid war means\u201d. Moscow \u201cis also constantly observing our reactions, and testing to see which of their actions works \u2014 before following up with more\u201d, the adviser added. One problem is the incidents often appear to be random and against targets unrelated to Ukraine \u2014 such as a fire that broke out in an Ikea store in Lithuania last month which Donald Tusk, Poland\u2019s prime minister, suggested could have been the work of foreign saboteurs.Another problem in formulating an appropriate response is that the incidents are often carried out by proxies, making it harder to attribute them directly to Russia. The Kremlin has consistently dismissed European governments\u2019 accusations of hybrid warfare.One western counter-intelligence officer said Moscow\u2019s increased used of proxies flowed from Europe\u2019s recent mass expulsion of hundreds of Russian diplomats and spies. Many alternative operatives are now drawn from criminal gangs, the officer said, which was a sign the west had succeeded in limiting Moscow\u2019s options, although this also brought new risks.\u201cThere is a greater chance of collateral damage and casualties as the proxies are not skilled in tradecraft, such as explosives,\u201d the officer said.Poland has been a particular focus of sabotage efforts, as it is a hub for western military supplies being delivered to neighbouring Ukraine. Authorities over the past month have arrested a dozen people on spying and sabotage-related charges. Most of them were recruited from organised crime, and Tusk has said they were \u201cdirectly implicated in the name of Russian [intelligence] services\u201d.Officials said Moscow has been deploying similar, so-called \u201cactive measures\u201d since the 1920s, and how to best counter them is a subject as old as the tactic itself. But current thinking, as explored in a recent EU-Nato report and an inquiry by the UK Parliament, typically involves a three-step process.The first is to recognise that the attacks are happening and to call them out. The second involves building national resilience \u2014 by hardening critical infrastructure, cyber-proofing computer systems, and building media literacy among the public against disinformation campaigns.The third step, how to respond, is the hardest as it requires a deterrence strategy that contains credible retaliation but that also avoids, as one senior western military official put it, \u201cunethical or illegal means of the kind that Russia uses\u201d.One possible measure, as proposed by Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsk\u00fd, is to restrict the visas of Russian diplomats so they cannot travel outside the country they are accredited in. \u201cWe really need to act,\u201d he told the FT. While Prague expelled most Russian diplomats in recent years, with only seven remaining in the Czech capital, hundreds continue to be accredited in Vienna from where they can travel anywhere in Europe \u201cand I cannot stop that\u201d, he said, adding: \u201cRussian influence is not welcomed in Prague.\u201dA more aggressive response might involve a tit-for-tat information campaign inside Russia that rams home the costs of the Ukraine war.\u201cIf you are an average Russian not a day should go by when you are not reminded of the huge number casualties that Russian troops have suffered,\u201d suggested Eliot Cohen, a former US state department adviser now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.Either way, western officials said, the central problem remains that Russia\u2019s grey zone attacks are unpredictable, come in multiple forms and are asymmetric so that retaliation in kind risks escalating the confrontation with Russia.Rink\u0113vi\u010ds cited the example of a subsea cable being cut in the Baltic Sea. One approach, he said, would be to increase Nato marine patrols. A more extreme one would be to close the sea to Russian vessels, even though that would be tantamount to \u201ca declaration of war\u201d.\u201cWe should be able to discuss all kinds of [retaliatory] instruments,\u201d Rink\u0113vi\u010ds said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying that all of them can be used. But if we restrict ourselves, without any discussion, we just invite further creative actions by Russia \u2014 and they are the masters of hybrid war.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Western governments are struggling to respond to what they say is a growing Russian campaign of sabotage attempts including arson at military bases and civilian infrastructure across Europe. The goal of these \u201cgrey zone\u201d attacks, which security officials said were often led by Russian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-103423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}