By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy

MOSCOW/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Finland’s president says Russia has launched a “hybrid war” against Europe and the West using non-traditional methods to weaken their resolve.

Alexander Stubb clarified that Moscow can fight two major wars simultaneously as Russia receives military support from Iran, North Korea, and China.

“One [war] is a kinetic, conventional war in Ukraine. The other is a hybrid war in Europe and the West with the aim of influencing the tone of public discourse or in some way shake our sense of security,” he told a foreign policy forum in Helsinki, the capital.

The hybrid war involves ranges from removing orange navigational aids on the Narva River that separates Estonia from Russia to sending groups of migrants to storm borders, government officials say.

According to experts, questioning established borders is another well-worn tactic given a modern twist.

Other Russian tactics noticed by the NATO military alliance include jamming the Global Positioning System (GPS), the satellite-based radio navigation used by military, civil, and commercial users worldwide.

Russia has also been recruiting criminals for petty acts of sabotage as part of an expanding repertoire of acts targeting the West, said leaders in Finland through the Baltic states to Poland and beyond.

LONG OCCUPATION

Russian forces occupied the Baltics and Poland for decades and now fear similar moves by Moscow.

Hungary, a fellow NATO nation, has been pushing for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine to prevent the hybrid war from further escalating.

However, most Western countries have pledged billions in assistance to Ukraine, which says the war can only end if Russia withdraws from the territories it occupied.

Moscow says a ceasefire and sustainable peace can only be reached if its military can stay in captured territories with a Russian majority, followed by a pledge from Ukraine that it won’t join NATO.

And it is reportedly pressuring the West to change its pro-Ukraine narrative. In the past few months alone, Finland and Sweden have suffered “airspace violations” by Russia.

Additionally, officials said Russia’s GPS interference prevented multiple commercial aircraft from landing at small regional airports. Poland reportedly detained people for alleged Russia-backed acts of sabotage inside the European Union.

The concerns of especially Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have been linked to them, saying a combined frontier with Russia extends over more than 2,300 kilometers(1,430 miles).

COLD WAR

And with the 1,250 kilometers (777 miles) shared with Belarus, they have longer problematic frontiers than the U.S.-Mexico border.

Since the Cold War, a 100-kilometer (62-mile) corridor separating Poland and Lithuania known as the Suwalki Gap has been considered a strategic choke point in any conflict scenario.

Sandwiched between Belarus and the heavily armed Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, it’s a territory that, if severed, would cut off the Baltic states’ land access to the rest of Europe, military experts warn.

In March, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko spoke of a blueprint to take the Suwalki Gap and close it to Kaliningrad on the Baltic.

Posing in military uniform with a fluffy white dog on his lap, Lukashenko was shown on social media talking with army commanders about a land grab of Lithuania and part of northern Poland.

With the hybrid war expanding, it was unclear how long European nations and, eventually, the United States would be willing to actively support Ukraine’s efforts to push back a weakened but still mighty military power.

Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.

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