Russia’s ‘hybrid attacks’ against NATO ‘look like war’ and allies must draw ‘red lines’

Russia’s unconventional attacks against NATO “look like war” and allies must set new red lines that will trigger a retaliation if crossed, a former foreign minister has warned.

Gabrielius Landsbergis, who stepped down as foreign minister of Lithuania earlier this month after four years in the post, told Sky News he did not believe the alliance was responding with sufficient speed and urgency to the threat.

Moscow is accused of a campaign of so-called hybrid attacks – designed to sit in a grey zone under the threshold of conventional war – that includes sabotage, the cutting of undersea cables, cyber hacks, election interference and assassination plots.

The Kremlin has denied Western allegations of hybrid hostilities.

Mr Landsbergis said a failure by NATO to act would lead to a worsening of the danger.

He warned there was even a possibility of an act of Russian hybrid warfare being sufficiently harmful that it could prompt allies to invoke an Article 5 response, whereby an attack on one member state is seen as an attack on all.

“From my perspective, it does look like war,” the Lithuanian politician said in an interview earlier in December, a couple of days before he left his post as foreign minister.

“Russians are… very good at sensing weakness or geopolitical vacuums. So, if there is no pushback, they will just creep on and continue with their activity.”

Asked whether Russian “grey zone” attacks could reach a level that prompted the alliance to invoke Article 5, Mr Landsbergis said: “Yes, I would think so. It is it is possible.”

He said it was important that Vladimir Putin understood this as otherwise his intelligence services would become even more brazen in their alleged attacks.

“We have to have a general NATO strategy that would be able to draw red lines and suggest a retaliation,” he said.

“I’m not necessarily saying a retaliation in kind. Right. It can be many things. But Russians need to know that this is not their park. You cannot just walk around and expect nothing to happen to you.”

NATO’s 32 member states are updating a 2015 strategy on tracking, deterring and countering hybrid warfare.

But the former Lithuanian foreign minister signalled that he did not believe their response to the threat was sufficiently fast or urgent.

“No, honestly, it isn’t,” he said.

Read more from Sky News:
NATO chief calls for shift to wartime mindset
Is Europe listening to NATO chief’s warnings?

He said countries like his and others with long experience of Russian hostility understood the need to act – but that some other allies would rather just hope the threat goes away.

“There’s a big psychological, you know, game, at least in our minds, being played where we try to sweep it under the carpet and not see it.”

The comments came after Sky News on Sunday published an interview with a top alliance official who warned there was a “real prospect” an unconventional attack by Russia against NATO would cause “substantial” casualties.

James Appathurai, who is updating the NATO strategy to track and deter hybrid warfare, also said allies must be clearer among themselves and with Moscow about what level of grey zone hostilities could trigger an allied response, including the use of military force.

Elisabeth Braw, a leading expert on hybrid warfare, said the entire way of life for liberal democracies was at risk if allies fail to respond effectively.

“The danger is that we see a death by a thousand cuts in our societies, that various things start malfunctioning or being disrupted and people lose faith in our way of life,” she said.

“And then we are we are really in trouble.”