As the level of tension between the West and Russia continues to ratchet up, expect to see more and more hostile activity in the “gray zone.” There have been plenty of instances of sabotage credibly linked to Russia in recent months.
CNN:
Arson at warehouses linked to arms for Ukraine. Surveillance cameras where NATO trains Ukrainian troops. Blunt vandalism of ministerial cars. Even an apparent, failed bomb plot.
Russia has been engaged in a “bold” sabotage operation across NATO’s member states for more than six months, targeting the supply lines of weapons for Ukraine and the decision-makers behind it, according to a senior NATO official.
Multiple security officials across Europe describe a threat that is metastasizing as Russian agents, increasingly under scrutiny by security services and frustrated in their own operations, hire local amateurs to undertake high-risk, and often deniable, crimes on their behalf.
And now (also via CNN):
US intelligence discovered earlier this year that the Russian government planned to assassinate the chief executive of a powerful German arms manufacturer that has been producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine, according to five US and western officials familiar with the episode.
The plot was one of a series of Russian plans to assassinate defense industry executives across Europe who were supporting Ukraine’s war effort, these sources said. The plan to kill Armin Papperger, a white-haired goliath who has led the German manufacturing charge in support of Kyiv, was the most mature.
When the Americans learned of the effort, they informed Germany, whose security services were then able to protect Papperger and foil the plot. A high-level German government official confirmed that Berlin was warned about the plot by the US.
The gray zone?
Clementine G. Starling, the deputy director of the Forward Defense program and a resident fellow at the Transatlantic Security Initiative, has described it as follows:
The gray zone describes a set of activities that occur between peace (or cooperation) and war (or armed conflict). A multitude of activities fall into this murky in-between—from nefarious economic activities, influence operations, and cyberattacks to mercenary operations, assassinations, and disinformation campaigns. Generally, gray-zone activities are considered gradualist campaigns by state and non-state actors that combine non-military and quasi-military tools and fall below the threshold of armed conflict. They aim to thwart, destabilize, weaken, or attack an adversary, and they are often tailored toward the vulnerabilities of the target state. While gray-zone activities are nothing new, the onset of new technologies has provided states with more tools to operate and avoid clear categorization, attribution, and detection—all of which complicates the United States’ and its allies’ ability to respond.
Two key reasons why waging a war in the gray zone is so effective for the aggressor are contained in the last part of that last sentence. The first is the question of proof, and the second, which applies even if there is proof of who was responsible, is how to respond. NATO is not (nor should it) go to war over an arson attack or even an assassination of, say, a business executive. But how does it hit back?