European countries are ill-prepared for threat of co-ordinated sabotage attacks by Russia and China, a classified EU intelligence report has warned
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The assessment, sent to Brussels in the spring […] underscores increasing concerns from Western officials that Beijing and Moscow are working in parallel, learning from each other’s tactics to undermine Western democracies and sow chaos.
“What is innovated by China on one end of the globe will be perfected by Russia on the other,” according to a portion of the report. “[EU nations] need to respond jointly and globally to attacks – even (or especially) those countries who are only indirectly affected.”
In a stark warning from EU diplomats to European commissioners, the document warns of “a gap” in Western thinking which China and Russia are seeking to “exploit”.
Experts consulted in the report, […] said that Russia is learning from Beijing’s so-called “grey zone” tactics in Taiwan, and perfecting them for use in Europe.
The term “grey zone” is used to describe the situation which exists between peace and open warfare and hostile activities fall just below what might be considered traditional acts of war.
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Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the UK and other European nations has seen an increase in suspected hybrid attacks co-ordinated by Moscow, such as cyber hacks, arson, disinformation and possible sabotage of critical undersea communication cables.
China has continued to deploy grey-zone warfare tactics by repeatedly encircling Taiwan with fighter jets and navy ships, launching cyber attacks, and making provocative statements of its desire to “reunite” with the self-ruled island. It has also launched at least a dozen rockets – or satellite missions – that have passed over Taiwan’s air defence zone in the past two years as fears of an all-out invasion grow.
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The classified EU report argues that Taiwan is only a “sub-theatre” for a much larger war against the West “rather than just one country”.
Dr Sari Arho Havrén, a associate fellow at the Rusi think-tank and China analyst, said the tactics are “perfect tools” to attack the “vulnerabilities of open, democratic and rule of law societies” because Russia and China can work together to weaken Western nations while simultaneously maintain a “plausible deniability”.
She [said]: “China and Russia have deepened their co-operation and co-ordination on all areas, and not least on security and militarily.
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“China’s support for Russia’s war economy through dual-use goods and sanctions evasion could be mirrored in a Taiwan scenario, with Russia also providing combat expertise or hybrid distractions like cyber attacks on European infrastructure.”
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If Chinese President Xi Jinping wanted to attack Taiwan, “he would first make sure that he makes a call to his very junior partner in all of this, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin… telling him, ‘Hey, I’m going to do this, and I need you to to keep them busy in Europe by attacking Nato territory’,” Rutte said in an interview with The New York Times.
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There’s are some indirect advantages to Russia’s organized crime mentality. Mired in nihilism and toxic masculinity, they only comprehend force and the application thereof, which frankly makes them less dangerous. Their insistence on making themselves into an undeniable existential threat and their constant unrelenting escalation has done nothing but galvanize the people of the EU against them. They would have been far greater threat if they could comprehend subtlety and had continued their far more successful campaign of political and societal subversion.
But, as the modern maxim goes, “Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself”.
I salute Russia’s uncharacteristic civic-mindedness and dedication to, ultimately, unfucking their own shit by ceasing to exist.
I would really like to know what EXACTLY they are doing, this is so vaguely written, that I couldn’t even judge whether this exists at all or not
I would really like to know what EXACTLY they are doing, this is so vaguely written, that I couldn’t even judge whether this exists at all or not
In May 2025, a report titled, “Testing the waters: Suspected Russian activity challenges Europe’s support for Ukraine”, listed 190 events since 2022 across Europe (you’ll find tables and map in the article), ranging from arson to cyber attacks, form jamming to vandalism, from flammable parcels to drone overflights, and form physical attacks to spying. The report states that the real number is probably higher than the reported 190.
Another investigation in the UK released just in July 2025 shows a massive surge in arson attacks in London neighbourhoods in 3 years as arson offences across the city have increased by 28 per cent, from 1,894 incidents reported in 2022 to 2,430 recorded in 2024, according to data published by the London Assembly. A quarter of those involved people aged 17 and under, according to the London Fire Brigade.
In April this year, Chinese officials have implicitly acknowledged responsibility for a series of sophisticated cyber intrusions targeting critical U.S. infrastructure as representatives from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs indirectly linked years of computer network breaches at U.S. ports, water utilities, airports, and other critical targets to increasing U.S. policy support for Taiwan.
This is just a start. You’ll find much more across many independent sources.
thanks! reading my comment again I feel the need to highlight that I did not try to imply it is not happening, I just let out some frustration about the article not being specific enough for my taste
All good.
The West should seek to destroy Russian society by all means short of kinetic war. Cyberattacks should be relentless; coordinated sanctions and other financial measures; drug smuggling; sabotage of all forms, especially of their oil pipelines and shipping; stoking separatism in the Caucuses and central Asian regions; and so on.
Our objective (at least in the EU) is not to destroy russian society, since they live next to us. Our objective is to protect ourselves from their attacks and let them drown in their own shit, if they keep insisting in living like that.
e.g. sanctions are not there just to punish them, they are to try to defund their attacks against us.
PS: We in the EU (e.g. Merkel) used to think that by helping them rebuild their society and building commercial ties and goodwill after the USSR they would become reliable partners that grew their pride in being constructive (hence why we didn’t want to spend on defense). But they’d rather make a mess and use those ties to undermine us so…fuck 'em.
PPS: the danger that seems to be looming is that it seems that both China and the US want to turn russia into the EU’s Pakistan, the same way Pakistan is a nuclear-armed failed state used to fuck with India and keep it under control.
You (and we) will never be safe from the blyats while strongmen control their population. It is long past time to destroy their society. We should have started on that project ~20 years ago.
Well, yea, in hindsight, we should have had a far more muscled approach with them, especially since 2007. But I don’t know what you mean by destroy their society. Their society is already fucked.
Destruction of government and civil society. The state of russia must be forced out of existence. Spare as many lives as possible.
We in the EU (e.g. Merkel) used to think
Merkel said Minsk II was deception. What we as citizens think that is happening is not entirely what the politicians are doing. Although her statement could also have been a lie.
I never talked about Minsk, that’s just mitigation after the fire started to spread. I talked about her 30 years of Ostpolitik, including 16 during her chancellorship.
If the last 6 years were a deception, why not the first 10?
russians yelling about Minsk is funny, they do 10x as much, 10x worse and then complain that we didn’t take their bullshit promises at face value…it’s a very bad vatnik talking point. We know what russia has been doing for decades, but we thought they were misunderstood, but now it is clear that they should be dealt with the same contempt that they have for us.
we thought they were misunderstood
Did we? The message for the population is one thing, but the professional diplomats and politicians must have known better.
russia had plenty of room for deescalation and to save face before they decided to go all in in 2022 and annex country unilaterally again. After that, there was no point pretending anyone took Minsk seriously anymore.
I am fairly confident that these occur already.
While western countries have an interest to emphasize the threat by such actions and attribute them to Russia in order to gain more support from the population, Russia has an interest to downplay such actions that hit Russia, in order to not loose support from the population, who should believe the war to only happen outside their borders.
However the attackers always have an interest in not taking responsibility for the attacks, unless its the Ukrainians pulling off some spectacular attack like the destruction of Russian strategic bombers deep inside Russia.
There also is a native resistance base inside Russia and Belarus that is most likely receiving outside support. For instance there was a wave of sabotage in Belarus and Russia against train infrastructure used to supply the Russian invasion army.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_war_in_Belarus_(2022–present)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_war_in_Russia_(2022–present)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYPOLIf so, then it needs to be increased 100-fold. And that won’t happen until the US gets its shit together.
