Drone incursions into Poland, fighter jets in Nato airspace, election interference in Romania and Moldova and “little green men” (soldiers of unconfirmed origin) in Estonia. These are just a few examples of the tactics Russia has been using in the past few weeks.
They appear to be part of a much broader strategy variously referred to as the “Gerasimov doctrine”, non-linear war or new-generation warfare. What lies behind these terms is the very worrying and very real “weaponisation of everything” – Moscow’s strategy to reshape international order.
As a researcher on great-power rivalries in Eurasia, I’ve observed this kind of hybrid warfare long before the full-scale invasion in Ukraine. We saw it most obviously with Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections. But it has intensified since the Ukraine conflict began in 2022.
