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- There is nothing new about Russia's hybrid attacks.
- Putin is looking for a weak spot in Western unity.
- Influence agents and useful idiots rush to the rescue.
Russia's hybrid attacks against its neighboring states via subsea infrastructure and shadow fleet tankers have recently drawn considerable international attention. It must be emphasized, however, that such provocative steps are nothing particularly new, historian and columnist Mart Kuldkepp writes.
Estonia and the other Baltic states noted already in the early 1990s Russia's systematic interference in the domestic affairs of its so-called «near abroad,» constant experiments with economic pressure tactics, and, of course, consistent obstruction in the international sphere. Early on, it was relatively easy to succeed in these efforts due to Western naivety.
The goal of all this activity has always been the same: to signal that although Russia may temporarily tolerate Baltic independence, it never intends to accept it in the long run. Russia continues to view these lands, which were annexed to the empire in the 18th century and where people had already learned to speak Russian to some extent by the final decades of the 19th century, as inherently Russian property, now lost to the West, especially the United States, through betrayal.
Under this mindset, the reintegration of the Baltic states into the derzhava(«great power» in Russian) is only a matter of time. Therefore, the Russian Federation, founded in 1991, considers itself entitled to influence, instruct, and punish these countries as it sees fit. In fact, behaving like a wicked stepmother is, for a Russia pushed back behind the Narva River, almost unavoidable — otherwise, other great powers may begin to look down on Russian interests in this region with arrogant disdain.
The inclusion of the Baltic states in the European Union and NATO is a clear indication that this is exactly what has happened. Worse still: the insult has not been atoned for, even though Russia has explicitly demanded that NATO withdraw to its 1997 borders.
In fact, behaving like a wicked stepmother is, for a Russia pushed back behind the Narva River, almost unavoidable — otherwise, other great powers may begin to look down on Russian interests in this region with arrogant disdain.
The full-scale war in Ukraine, launched in 2022, has somewhat complicated matters. Now entering its fourth year, the hopeless efforts are dangerous for the Kremlin not because it believes Ukraine might win or fears ordinary Russians will eventually tire of the aggression, but because Russia's clear weakness and ineptitude on the battlefield undermine its deterrence, not only in strictly military terms, but more broadly in terms of international reputation.
The latter is especially critical, because Putin understands that no one is preparing to attack Russia militarily. But the fear of growing «Nazism» and «Russophobia» — in other words, the fear that Russia is no longer feared or respected — is entirely justified and demands countermeasures.
Preferably, those countermeasures should be cheap for Russia's already strained wartime economy and should exploit existing vulnerabilities, such as the insufficient protection of subsea infrastructure or the lack of legal mechanisms to control what happens in international waters.
Most effective of all, however, is to find a psychological weak point in the Western world, one that could be used to start softening NATO's resolve with the help of influence agents and useful idiots. In this respect, Western journalism, which has anxiously speculated for decades about scenarios like «Narva is next,» has been a perfect ally to Russia.