Top NATO commander says Russian hybrid campaign ‘isn’t working’

NATO’s top military commander said Monday that Russia’s sabotage campaign in Europe was failing to put countries off supporting Ukraine.

“State-directed sabotage is growing increasingly brazen,” US General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told a committee of EU lawmakers.

Grynkewich cited recent incidents including the discovery of an explosive-laden drone at a German airport and a Russian naval ship firing flares at a Danish helicopter.

“These are clear examples of attempts to instill fear and fracture our unified support to Ukraine. It isn’t working,” he said, pointing at Denmark’s fast-tracking of fresh aid for Ukraine after the flare incident.

“If there is a hybrid attack on your country, reinforcing the will to support Ukraine will show the Russians that their strategy isn’t working and maybe have them back off that strategy,” he added later.

Grynkewich said that NATO countries working together “can handle these threats, and we are handling them.”

“Our information sharing and our coordination mechanisms are growing stronger every day, and while we can’t talk about everything we’re doing, I can say we are detecting, attributing, and responding as these hybrid threats arise,” he said.

European governments say Moscow is stepping up a campaign of sabotage and interference against Ukraine’s backers as the Kremlin’s troops struggle on the front line there, more than four years after their February 2022 invasion.

Grynkewich urged authorities to go public with attributions once they had confirmed who was behind any incidents and to coordinate the response with allies.