Rym Momtaz, Kadri Liik, and Nathalie Tocci discuss Russia’s escalating attacks on EU and NATO members and how far Europe should go in responding.
From severed undersea cables to explosive-laden drones over a German airport runway and a Romanian gas field, Russia’s attacks on European NATO countries have escalated in recent months.
Rym Momtaz, Kadri Liik, and Nathalie Tocci discuss whether Europe is deterring Russia enough and if it should—or can—start striking back.
[00:00:00] Intro, [00:01:09] Russia’s Attacks: Hybrid or More?, [00:09:35] Is Europe Capable of Deterring Russia? [00:17:52] What Can Europe Do to Stop Russian Attacks?
Maksym Beznosiuk, July 21, 2026, "Why Russia Could Escalate Hybrid Warfare Against Europe," Strategic Europe, Carnegie Europe.
Alissa de Carbonnel, July 23, 2026, "Why Europe Must Take Charge of its Russia Diplomacy Now," Strategic Europe, Carnegie Europe.
Kadri Liik, July 7, 2026, "Why Europe Cannot Negotiate a New Yalta with Russia," Strategic Europe, Carnegie Europe.
Rym Momtaz, September 1, 2026, "Europe’s Self-Confidence Problem," Strategic Europe, Carnegie Europe.
Rym Momtaz et al., July 28, 2026, "Taking the Pulse: Are the EU’s Watered-Down Russia Sanctions Better than None?," Strategic Europe, Carnegie Europe.
Nathalie Tocci, August 4, 2026, "With Russia at the door and the US backing away, Europe has to build its own ‘way of war’," The Guardian.
Nathalie Tocci, January 31, 2026, "How Europe Lost," Foreign Affairs.
Rym Momtaz
Hello and welcome to this new season of Europe Inside Out. I'm your host, Rym Momtaz, the editor in chief of Carnegie Europe’s Strategic Europe, where twice a week we publish punchy short analysis on all things strategic in Europe. Today, we're taking a closer look at the way European countries have been dealing with a growing and intensifying Russian campaign of sabotage, cyber-attacks, and outright attacks with explosive-laden drones, all probing the red lines of direct confrontation.
I'm happy to be joined by Kadri Liik, visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, where she focuses on Russia and Russia's relations with the West. And Nathalie Tocci, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and also a former special advisor to not one, but two EU High Representatives, Federica Mogherini and Josep Borrell. Welcome both.
Nathalie Tocci
Thank you so much for having us.
Rym Momtaz
Let me start with you, Kadri, because in addition to your Russia expertise, you lived under Soviet occupation since you are Estonian, so your country's independence was restored in 1991. Let's start with something basic. How would you qualify the series of events that European nations, from the Baltics to the Atlantic Ocean have been experiencing?
Kadri Liik
Well, I think that is a lot worse than anything I remember from the Soviet time. Because, you know, the Soviet Union that I was able to see due to my age, that was late Soviet Union, and that was fairly risk averse. So, I think Russia under Putin is a much different power. They think differently. Putin has that KGB background, and he thinks in terms of special operations, and he sees special operations also in other countries’ actions where none are present. And he understands risk differently. His way of communication is different. So that is a different country. You know, in the Soviet Union, you had KGB and the communist party fighting for power. There was some competition. Now the KGB is in the government.
Rym Momtaz
And so for you, what are these attacks? Are they hybrid attacks? Are they just full-blown attacks? Is this a war already?
Kadri Liik
No, I don't think. I mean, if that's a war, it surely can get a lot worse. But these are quite brazen attacks. They seem to still have the aim at least. I mean, the Leipzig attack was aimed at wreaking damage to European factories that supply Ukraine. So, it's not like “any civilian damage is fine.” So, in recent Russia still can escalate. But it does worry me because sooner or later, one such attack could end badly, with lots of civilian casualties.
Rym Momtaz
The Leipzig attack is the attack with a drone laden with explosives that tried to basically blow up a cargo plane, at the Leipzig airport. Nathalie, how do you describe, first of all, these attacks for you? What threshold are we at?
Nathalie Tocci
Well, firstly, I have actually come around to the view that talking about hybrid attacks and hybrid war is not useful anymore. I think because. Well, I think it's not useful conceptually. I think it's not useful politically. I think it's not useful conceptually because, precisely, actually, something that Kadri was saying, I mean, you know, this very fluid you know, sort of frontier between what's conventional, what's hybrid, is a hybrid attack that ends up with mass civic civilian casualties. how should we classify it given that, you know, was it intentional? Was it not intentional? So I think it's an extremely murky area which served a purpose for some time because, indeed, it was not the kind of tanks rolling in across the border. And so we felt that we needed another way of describing what we were talking about. But given that I actually don't think that in Russia's own strategy there is such a black and white distinction, I think that sort of substantively, and in a sense militarily and even conceptually, it's no longer really useful to make that distinction. I mean, it seems to me, but you know, Kadri is far more of an expert than I am that.
Russia pursues a war strategy which has at least three legs to it. There is a military-military leg. There is a hybrid-military leg. And there is a political-hybrid leg with the political-hybrid leg largely translating in the support for parties on the far right, parties that are really aimed at European disintegration. And they very often, not always, but very, very often end up also being pro-Russian parties. So, I think on the one hand, it's not useful from a sort of substantive policy perspective, but I also think it's not useful from a politics perspective, particularly in countries like my own, you basically have public opinion being confronted with very contradictory message. So, on the one hand people are told nonstop “we are not at war, we are not at war, we are not at war.” But on the other hand, they're also told that they have to spend lots on defense, which ends up meaning not spending on other priorities. And kind of what sits in the middle of these two actually contradictory messages is “well, there is of course a hybrid war.” And hybrid war, politically speaking, is an extreme, I mean it's hard for policy wonks like us to get our heads around, let alone from, you know, for the man and woman on the street. And so I actually think that talking about hybrid war, of course this is not what the intention was, but has ended up blowing wind in the sails of precisely those forces that Moscow is trying to support.
Rym Momtaz
And you're talking about Italy, and you're talking from Italy, which is a country where already support for, let's say massive military and financial aid to Ukraine in the face of the Russian assault was already on shaky grounds before we even get into what you, I think, rightfully describe as a murky concept for people to get their heads around. So Kadri, given I think both of you sort of agree that we are in a place that is dangerous with Russia, how do you assess the response so far from capitals and in a second wind from the EU. Do you think they've been up to?
Kadri Liik
The task that is actually hard to assess because we do not know about communication that might be happening behind the scenes. And sometimes in these cases a lot happens behind the scenes. I mean, to bring an example, when Russia intervened in U.S. election back in 2016, and then there were fears that Russia would continue doing so. Then, Obama, communicated that to Russians, “stop.” I don't know how he did that, what exactly he said, what did he threatened with. But whatever they did, it seemed to have worked. Russia backed off at the time. I later had a chance to mention that to Joe Biden when he was no longer vice president, not yet president. There was that period we crossed paths somewhere. I said that, “listen, I didn't know what you did, but it worked.” And he gave me that wide grin of his. So I think there was something and I do not know if such conversations.
Rym Momtaz
Backchanneling
Kadri Liik
Exactly. If something like that, you know, backchanneling. Yeah, you need to, I think, threaten and curse also with Russia, you know, threaten retaliation. I don't know if that is happening or not. I hope it is. I hope Europe has the channels, and it has what to threaten with.
Rym Momtaz
What are the sticks that Europe has when it comes to Russia?
Kadri Liik
Well, Russia is vulnerable to Europe too.
Rym Momtaz
But how is it vulnerable? I don't think it's clear to everyone.
Kadri Liik
In all sorts of ways. I mean, Russia is vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Kaliningrad is vulnerable in all sorts of ways because it's isolated. If Lithuania stopped transit to Kaliningrad, it would be cut off. But I don't recommend Lithuania to threaten Russia with that, because for Russia, that would be much more existential, and they would start another round of escalation. So it needs to be done with some skill.
Rym Momtaz
Nathalie, you brought up something very important and actually in a way existential for democracies, which is, what do you signal to your population? So, do you think that these governments are signaling publicly? So Kadri covered what might be happening privately behind closed doors. But are these governments, these European governments, publicly signaling to Russia something that is of enough of a deterrent to stop this?
Nathalie Tocci
I mean, I think they're signaling some things and they're not signaling other things. I mean, I think they are signaling fairly credibly, given that there is a hell of a lot of money being spent, that they are taking deterrence increasingly seriously. So I think that that is a serious signaling going on. I think that the rearmament going on in Europe in general, and particularly in Eastern, Northern Europe and Germany is a very serious endeavor. And I think that that is taken probably, I guess, very seriously in Moscow. I don't think that we are signaling very clearly because, as I said, we're not doing so to our own populations, to ourselves, let alone to Moscow, that we consider ourselves to be in a state of war. So, in a sense, I think we're signaling credibly to deterrence. We're not signaling credibly defense necessarily. And you see this in various ways, right? I mean, you see it in ways in which, indeed, you know, thank goodness we haven't seen a hybrid attack causing civilian casualties, as we were describing a moment ago.
But we have seen many hybrid attacks, right? And there is this kind of constant to what extent are we actually going to call them out? To what extent are we going to brush it under the carpet. If we're not going to brush it under the carpet, how are we going to react? Are we going to phone Washington? Well, probably Washington would say “nothing has happened.” Do we really have alternative mechanisms to deal with this? Where would we hold this conversation? In NATO? Well, we can't, because United States is sitting around the table. In the EU? We can't. So, what we're not signaling clearly within our institutions, to our publics, and consequently to Russia. Is this a question of defense? If tomorrow morning, God forbid, there were to be that hybrid attack that intentionally or non-intentionally were to cause mass civilian casualties, what exactly are the mechanisms through which the reaction would take place? I don't think that the plans are there. And if they are there, there hasn't been clear signaling, not about what the plans are, but if the plans do exist. And I think this is generating, as far as public opinion is concerned, particularly as I said, for those public opinions which are further away from the front line, a state of kind of, I think, rather bewilderment and confusion. Because one thing is to say, well, we've got to help Ukraine because this is a fight for democracy and freedom and all good things. And then of course you have those that want to help more, that want to help less. Another thing is to basically say, it's Europe that's at war. This is a war that is taking place in Europe. The military-military dimension is playing out in Ukraine, but the wider war is actually already well beyond Ukraine's borders. That I think is a message which is not being sent out clearly. And it's not being sent out clearly, I fear, because our own institutions they're in a deterrence mode, they're not in an actual defense mode.
Rym Momtaz
Okay, let's take two things apart though. Are we deterring enough? Because you are seeing, statistically speaking, more and more of this Russian probing that is actually becoming more and more dangerous, because they did get to a point where in July and August they sent drones with explosives not only on a civilian airport, but also on a Romanian gas field. And you know, things are, they could go pretty badly, pretty quickly. And we're not even talking about the, you know, Russian aircrafts that are violating airspaces. That's one. So are we truly deterring? And second, should the threshold be a mass civilian casualty incident or is it just
Nathalie Tocci
I think we are so far, I mean, of course, you know, this situation account of factuals, we've obviously deterred a conventional attack. Right. We don't know, you know, the hypothetical in which they would have happened, but the point is that they haven't happened. So, I wouldn't entirely basically say, I mean, it's all catastrophe because we obviously have done something, or at least Russia has not done certain things. But very clearly we have not deterred, we are not deterring. And in fact, I would go beyond and say we are actually inviting, through some of the ambiguities that I was referring to, a hybrid escalation which you know, it may well be. And here Kadri is the expert that, you know, Putin doesn't necessarily have a fixed sort of threshold as to where he wants to get. You just keep on pushing the envelope and see how far you can get go.
Rym Momtaz
So, Kadri, obviously you have been studying Russia for a long time. What do you think is the calculus here? What is Moscow trying to achieve with this probing that it's doing.
Kadri Liik
Just a step back. Why? Another reason why maybe we are not attributing all of these attacks or not quickly enough. It's not also easy to do. I mean, I have been talking to people who work for special services. First, they might be sure that it's Russia, but they don't want to speak about it because their knowledge would expose other ways they got it. That would tell Russia far too more than you want. But another matter is that it always takes, often it takes time to actually understand what's happened. For instance, here in the Baltics, often it's undersea cables that have been cut and to understand what happened it takes a while. And different people need to communicate who normally don't. I mean, you would have coast guards, police, telecom firms, etc. These people have not normally been well connected enough to even discuss. I guess these mechanisms are now better in place, but still. So there are some legitimate reasons why not every attack is attributed. But I agree with Nathalie that we shouldn't be confused. I think it would be proper thing for our politicians to do to say that “listen, we know that Russia wants to upend European Union in ways we know it and prove to that is that and that and that.” And if a new attack happens, you can say that it might or might not be part of the same strive. But we know that that ambition is there in Moscow, have no doubt about that. So there are ways of bringing some clarity into the matter, even without sort of rushing into judgment when something else happens. The question about deterrence though is much more complicated because why Russia is doing what it is doing is because it's now mostly Europe standing between Russia and victory in Ukraine. It is Europe that is equipping Ukraine. It's Europe that has made it entirely clear that it's not planning to recognize, any territory changing hands by force in Europe. So, I think Putin has, unless he gives up on his war aims entirely, and I don't see him doing that quite yet, I think he's bound to continue what he's doing.
Rym Momtaz
Nathalie, you have been an advisor to the EU high reps. If you had been in this job again today, what would you be advising?
Nathalie Tocci
I would be advising that, I mean it circles back to this entire conversation, that up until when you're basically fighting an adversary that knows and acts and recognizes that they are at war and you're on the other side with far more capabilities, far more of everything, and yet you do not, that creates a massive structural disadvantage. It basically means, you know, just take the case of cyber. You do cyber defense, but you can't do cyber offense. I mean, it basically means fighting not with one, and not even with two hands behind your back. It means not even recognizing that you're in the fight. And I think it's a cognitive shift that needs to happen, which then comes with a change of rules, of norms, of regulations, of procurement. I mean, it comes with a hell of a lot. But at the very start of this is, as I said, that cognitive switch of recognizing that we are in a fundamentally different situation and that our continent is at war.
Rym Momtaz
Nathalie, we're going to let you go. I know you have to get somewhere. Kadri, do you think it's time for the Europeans to fight fire with fire? Do you think it's time for the Europeans, in addition to whatever they're doing behind the scenes, which is supposed to remain under wraps, do you think it's time for them to do some things that are not necessarily directly attributable to them, like the Russians do with Europe, but that would be a bit more felt and public by the Russian population?
Kadri Liik
Not maybe the same way as Russia does, but I think if we were really able to calibrate it well, choose the target well, make sure the message is understood as it meant to be understood, then a few such things I wouldn't be against. I'm not sure about population, but you could do things that would be felt by the elites or by those in the Kremlin. I mean, my big question about that is: is Europe capable of choosing, its way of action and its target wisely? Can Europe make sure that communication is understood as it is meant? Because, you know, any such act would actually be communication. It wouldn't be anything else.
Rym Momtaz
But it's interesting what you're saying, because I can feel the discomfort you feel with that, whereas the Russians, at least from where I stand, seem to be one of their objective is to scare the general European population. It's to push the general European population to be so worried about an escalation with Russia into war that they put pressure on their elected politicians and representatives to stop their support to Ukraine, which is fighting against a Russian invasion and an illegal war. Is it not time for the Europeans to put that kind of pressure also on the Russian population, which, in a certain way, at least a part of that population is still supportive of their own system?
Kadri Liik
No, I don't think that's the solution, because in Russia, it would, A, cause people to rally to the flag, and B, you know, they wouldn't go against the government. Plus, there are no legal ways of changing the government, given Russia's election system to the extent it's under government control. Duma elections are upcoming, and only pro-war parties are running or pro-Kremlin. So, I don't think that would reach the objective. I think that could actually end up benefiting the Kremlin. But if you had a way to signal something to the elite then that's worth considering. But it's a risky thing of course. You really need to get it right. And I have my doubts about whether Europe has what it takes to get it right.
Rym Momtaz
So, Kadri, you don't think that fighting fire with fire necessarily would be effective. And, of course, the issue is for the Europeans to find what is effective in order for, perhaps, fruitful and effective discussions with Russia to start. That way they can start actually talking about a new architecture of security for the region and maybe an end to the war. One can only hope. I want to thank you so much for making the time to join us, for this month's Europe Inside Out.
Kadri Liik
Thank you, my pleasure.
Rym Momtaz
Thank you for joining this month’s episode of Europe Inside Out. For those who are interested in learning more about Europe’s security and EU-Russia relations, I encourage you to follow the work of Carnegie Europe on X and LinkedIn.
Our producer is Mattia Bagherini.