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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Pjotr Sauer

Europe calls out Russia’s ‘hybrid war’ in public. But how can it make Putin pay?

Wrapped cargo pallets on carts sit near an Antonov cargo plane at a German airport
Freight in front of a Ukrainian Antonov plane at Germany’s Leipzig airport after a drone was spotted nearby. Photograph: NEWS5/AFP/Getty Images

Russia’s suspected sabotage campaign across Europe appears to be gathering pace again, confronting governments with a problem they have struggled to solve since the start of the war in Ukraine: how to impose a meaningful cost on Moscow for attacks that remain deliberately below the threshold of conventional war.

Over the past month alone, an explosives-laden drone was discovered next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at Germany’s Leipzig airport, Poland has faced suspected acts of sabotage, and a string of unexplained explosions and fires have hit defence facilities supplying Ukraine across Europe.

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