A fresh Phase of Hybrid War

Unfortunately, historical events between our peoples origin the opinion of Ukrainians as a threat to our safety to be heard by any of the audience. Therefore, it is not by accident that people suspected of the act of panic on the railway utilized Ukrainian passports, although the paper itself does not indicate who the perpetrator feels and is actually loyal to.

The Russians had already utilized Ukrainians and Belarusians in another hybrid activities. Although it should not be generalized, it must be taken into account that Russian services can find one-off agents in these communities that attract easy money, they can besides force people to cooperate with blackmail, utilizing household ties. People whose families live in occupied areas of Ukraine, or whose relatives have been imprisoned in Russia, are susceptible to specified pressure. We must besides take account of the fact that respective 100 years of rusification caused any people in Ukraine to sympathize with Moscow, as confirmed by regular counterintelligences detected by Ukraine. The fast adoption by Europe of hundreds of thousands of refugees that have not been checked means that there are besides people with specified views. The chaos at the beginning of the conflict besides made it easier for Russian services to spread their secretive agents.

The vicinity of the Mika Railway Station, where harm to the tracks occurred on the night of 15 to 16 November as a consequence of a diversion act. Photo. Wojciech Olkuśnik/East News

We must be aware that the human resources that the Russians can usage for diversion in Poland and another countries are much wider. For them, criminal environments with both national and abroad pedigree are important, especially from the area of the erstwhile russian Union. There are suspicions that gangs operating there have ties to Russian services, and their members, even without formal contacts, can be utilized to execute various missions. If good money is offered to them, they will not know who the chief is and what his intentions are. At the same time, any sabotage orders, specified as arsons, may appear to be part of criminal actions alternatively than a hybrid attack. An example is the fire of the Marywilska buying centre in Warsaw, where it was not excluded that deliberate action may have been the reason, due to the fact that violent conflicts had already occurred in this place. Another reason was that tenants did not comply with safety regulations.

Fighting hybrid actions or bringing those active to account is difficult, which shows the case of suspected Russian intelligence agents who wanted to blow up the tracks. In the regulation of law, it is essential to prove unequivocally the participation in the crime. This raises the question of what to do in specified ambiguous situations. Well, in the past, peculiar rules have emerged in Western countries to combat terrorism, and possibly any of these solutions should be taken.

The future is not drawn in pink colors, due to the fact that Russia is becoming more and more insolent. Meanwhile, winter is coming, during which the Russians can effort to carry out further sabotage actions. In addition to the communication infrastructure, another alleged soft targets that are hard to defend are at risk. At this time of year, the most dangerous would surely be acts of diversion aimed at power plants, CHP plants or pipelines. The deficiency of electricity and heat would affect people who would simultaneously be flooded on the net by Russian trolls with a stream of false information. The foretaste of this was their actions after the incidental on the railway.