{"id":1883,"date":"2026-05-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mikhailinvest.com\/nato-warns-russias-hybrid-war-is-targeting-europes-energy-grid\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T10:39:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T07:39:18","slug":"nato-warns-russias-hybrid-war-is-targeting-europes-energy-grid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikhailinvest.com\/zh\/nato-warns-russias-hybrid-war-is-targeting-europes-energy-grid\/","title":{"rendered":"\u5317\u7ea6\u8b66\u544a\uff1a\u4fc4\u7f57\u65af\u7684\u6df7\u5408\u6218\u4e89\u6b63\u7784\u51c6\u6b27\u6d32\u7535\u7f51"},"content":{"rendered":"

While many may be focusing\u00a0on the transfer of nuclear weapons\u00a0from Russia to Belarus on NATO\u2019s northeastern Baltic States border, the bloc’s security apparatus\u00a0is at least as concerned\u00a0about imminent attacks\u00a0on the region’s energy infrastructure, a senior source who works very closely with the European Union’s (E.U.’s) energy\u00a0security complex exclusively told OilPrice.com<\/em> last week. \u201cRussia\u2019s effectively been at war with the West since February 2007 when [Russian President Vladimir] Putin condemned NATO\u2019s expansion to the East, which was followed by a huge cyber-attack against Estonia,\u201d he said. \u201cThen we had the beginning of the land pushback, with Russia\u2019s war on Georgia in 2008, where we [the West] did nothing to dissuade him from further actions Westwards, then the first invasion of Ukraine and annexation on Crimea in 2014, where we did nothing much again [as analysed in full in\u00a0my latest book on the new global oil market order<\/a>], and then the second invasion of Ukraine in 2022,\u201d he added. \u201cWe\u2019re into the final phase now, in which we\u2019re making a stand, and Russia\u2019s testing how resolved we are,\u201d he underlined. So, what happens next in terms of Europe\u2019s crucial energy infrastructure?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect hybrid attacks of the sort we\u2019ve seen in recent years, and more direct physical ones, which have also increased in recent months, primarily against gas infrastructure, electricity cables, offshore networks, and control systems,\u201d said the source. \u201cThe full array of these measures has already been used by Russia in Ukraine, so they\u2019re ready to roll out whenever Putin wants — it\u2019s just a question of how far he\u2019s willing to push the boundaries before he thinks we\u2019ll react with true deterrent force,\u201d he added. As also highlighted by the E.U. Institute for Security Studies, there have been several incidents since Russia\u2019s\u00a0full-blown\u00a0invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in which undersea energy cables were severed by\u00a0Russian-affiliated\u00a0vessels. For example, in December 2024, Russian shadow fleet vessel Eagle S<\/em> was apprehended by Finnish authorities after severing EstLink 2, a critical electricity interconnector linking Finland and Estonia. The ship had military-grade detection hardware in its hull, indicating a direct, premeditated, and malicious attack on European energy infrastructure. Similarly, a Russian vessel, the Scanlark<\/em>, was detained by authorities after being caught launching surveillance drones and carrying spying equipment near the\u00a0Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Station\u00a0in Finland. \u201cSubsea electricity interconnectors and gas pipelines in the Baltic and North Seas are also highly vulnerable to the same style of attacks, with the same capabilities also available for the targeting of power grids to trigger cascading regional blackouts across the highly interconnected European electricity grids,\u201d the E.U. source told OilPrice.com last week. Indeed, an attempted dual nature energy-telecommunications hit was tried by Russia within the last couple of months, as revealed by the British Ministry of Defence on\u00a09 April. Three Russian submarines were mapping and surveying vital gas pipelines in the North Sea, and undersea electricity interconnectors vital to trading power with mainland Europe.\u00a0\u201cThis is all part of Russia\u2019s ongoing grey war with the West, focused on Europe right now, which aims to critically undermine us without crossing the boundary that triggers Article 5<\/a> and outright war between NATO and Russia,\u201d the source underlined. Related: Sanctioned Russian LNG Tanker Stops at Norwegian Port<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The key reason why there has been a surge in the scale and scope of Russia\u2019s grey war in recent weeks is that Putin thinks time is running out for his \u2018Special Military Operation\u2019 in Ukraine, according to security sources in Washington and London exclusively spoken to by OilPrice.com last week and exclusively confirmed by a very high-level Moscow-based source in the current Russian Administration. Part of Putin\u2019s belief comes from the burn rate of Russian soldiers on the frontline, with only 70% of those killed now able to be replaced by new recruits. \u201cThis is the big problem, because it means that the [recruitment] net will have to be widened to areas that could cause political problems,\u201d said the Moscow source last week. In this context, much of the burden of the war to date has been borne by Russia\u2019s ethnic minorities and those from poor regions, for whom the relatively high military salaries and death benefits are life-changing money for them and their families, whether they live or die. So far, the more affluent, better-connected, and more highly educated \u2018middle class\u2019 Russians from the major metropolitan hubs — specifically\u00a0Moscow and St Petersburg — have been largely insulated from the war. But, with Putin\u2019s choice now being either an end to the war on Ukrainian terms or extending recruitment to the previously protected class, this could change, although both possibilities have been prepared for. On the one hand, Putin said on 9 May that the Ukraine war is \u2018coming to an end\u2019 — the first time in over four years of fighting that he has used this specific phrasing.\u00a0On the other hand, Russia rolled out a unified digital conscription registry last May, which sends draft notices electronically via state portals. The likelihood of major protests erupting if this system is used across Russia\u2019s major metropolitan hubs may have been foreshadowed by the Kremlin\u2019s drive to isolate the country\u2019s internet, allowing it to suppress the kind of widespread dissent that fuelled the Arab Spring uprisings.<\/p>\n

There are three other factors in the \u2018why now\u2019 equation for Russia, according to the Washington, London, and E.U. sources, again confirmed by the very highly placed source in Moscow. The most immediate catalyst was the unblocking of the \u20ac90 billion E.U. package for Ukraine, following the removal from power of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n, who acted as Putin\u2019s de facto<\/em> blocking vote on E.U. legislation the Russian premier did not want. Two-thirds of this money is strictly earmarked for spending by Ukraine on hard defence assets rather than just keeping the government afloat. Even without this, Ukraine has dramatically expanded its capabilities of hitting key military and civilian infrastructure targets deep inside Russia for the first time, with repeated hits on key sites connected to its ability to monetise its oil and gas resources by exports. Last year, according to industry figures, Russian oil firms suffered\u00a0RUB1 trillion roubles (US$12.9 billion) in combined losses\u00a0across 120 recorded energy facility strikes. But since January alone this year, Russia has already lost over US$7 billion in oil revenue, driven by the prolonged downtime of facilities and steep export reductions from disrupted Baltic Sea shipping hubs like Ust-Luga and Primorsk. Worse still for Putin is that his long-running project to keep U.S. President Donald Trump on its side has backfired as, no longer under the shackles of U.S. arms supply deals, Ukraine is no able to keep hitting any target it wants inside Russia up to 1,200 miles, putting over 70% of the Russian population within Ukraine\u2019s crosshairs.\u00a0Putin knows that this is only going to get worse, as Ukraine continues to develop the range and accuracy of its own missiles and drones with the funding from the new \u20ac90bn package.<\/p>\n

The second reason for Russia stepping up its pressure on the West is that Europe is moving ahead with new sanctions designed to end all imports of Russian gas and oil and cut off Moscow\u2019s access to the financing that supports them. Liquefied natural gas imports will end by the end of this year, natural gas by 30 September next year, and crude oil and petroleum products by the end of next year. To this end, its latest (20th<\/sup>) Sanctions Package, adopted on 23 April, was structured specifically to cut off Russia’s financial loopholes and squeeze what remains of its energy revenue. It focuses on eliminating its Shadow Fleet of vessels still transporting Russian oil and gas covertly around the world, and on ending crypto escape routes that allow Russia to use digital assets to circumvent traditional Western banking blocks. And the final reason, again an unintended by-product of Putin\u2019s misjudgement in attempting to use Trump for his maximum benefit to Russia, is that because of Europe\u2019s uncertainty now over the U.S. commitment to NATO\u2019s Article 5, it is rearming at pace, at scale, and in size. Even before this current round of military build-up, the chance of Russia defeating a united European military force — without the U.S. — was minimal, which is why Moscow has continued to fight a grey war under the boundary that would trigger outright conflict. But European NATO\u2019s membership has expanded since the Ukraine invasion, and commitments to new spending and realised new expenditure have increased dramatically. In the end, Europe\u2019s energy grid is no longer just infrastructure \u2014 it is the front line. And Russia\u2019s grey war will keep pressing against it until Moscow is convinced. European officials fear Russia\u2019s \u201cgrey war\u201d is entering a more dangerous phase, with gas pipelines, electricity interconnectors, offshore networks, and subsea infrastructure increasingly vulnerable to sabotage and cyberattacks. The West is finally prepared to push back in a way that convinces Putin that he must go no further.<\/p>\n

By Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com<\/p>\n

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