US and Europe fear escalation of Russian hybrid warfare amid Ukraine missile attacks
Andrew Roth in Washington, Shaun Walker and Pjotr Sauer

Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. Photograph: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Reuters
The US state department said it was “incredibly” concerned about Russia’s campaign of hybrid warfare against the west, amid fears it will escalate following Ukraine’s first use of US-made long-range missiles on targets inside Russia, after the Biden administration lifted restrictions on their use.

Russia has promised an “appropriate” response to the new policy, and has engaged in nuclear sabre-rattling by changing its nuclear doctrine in recent days. However, western officials believe the thrust of the Russian response may come not on the battlefield in Ukraine but elsewhere in the world.

Potential hybrid attacks could span a wide menu of options, including expanding its campaign of sabotage and assassinations in Europe or further arming US adversaries in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific regions, according to people briefed on the discussions about a potential Russian response.

European ministers discussed Russia’s asymmetric warfare during a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, where the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom accused Russia in a joint statement of “systematically attacking European security architecture”.

Speaking in Washington, the US state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: “Generally, we are incredibly concerned about hybrid warfare conducted by Russia both in Europe and around the world, and its something we have been in close coordination with our European allies and other allies and partners around the world.” Referring to the recent sabotage to two under-sea fibre-optic communication cables in the Baltic Sea, Miller added that Russia would be “held accountable” for further such actions.

Russia may choose to delay a further escalation ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump, who has threatened to cut aid to Ukraine and broker a peace deal that is strongly expected to favour Russia.

The first Ukrainian attack with Atacms struck an ammunition warehouse in Bryansk region, the New York Times reported, citing US and Ukrainian officials. The region lies north-west of the Kursk region where a Ukrainian incursion has been under way since early August.

The Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelenskyy, did not directly confirm the Bryansk attack but said: “We now have Atacms, Ukrainian long-range capabilities, and we will use them.”

Russia’s defence ministry claimed five of the missiles were shot down and another was damaged. The ministry added that debris from the rockets caused a fire at an unnamed military facility. A US official told the Associated Press that just two of the missiles were intercepted.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has promised to give an “appropriate” response to the first use of the US-made missiles, which Vladimir Putin has previously said would be tantamount to Washington and its Nato allies entering direct conflict with Russia.

The reports emerged hours after Vladimir Putin signed a revised nuclear doctrine lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons. A spokesperson for the US national security council played down that decision, saying the revision had been planned for weeks and that “observing no changes to Russia’s nuclear posture, we have not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture or doctrine in response to Russia’s statements today”.

Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, said he would not be deterred by the new doctrine from supporting Ukraine. “There’s irresponsible rhetoric coming from Russia, and that is not going to deter our support for Ukraine,” he told reporters at the G20 summit in Brazil.

Behind the scenes, US and European officials have also discussed the potential for Russia to step up a growing campaign of attacks on US and European infrastructure that has escalated significantly since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

In the joint statement, the UK and EU ministers said Russia’s hybrid attacks were “escalating” and “unprecedented in their variety and scale, creating significant security risks”.

“Nato and [the] EU have to do a lot more to protect this critical infrastructure,” the Finnish defense minister, Antti Häkkänen, told Politico. “We know that Russia has [the] capability and willingness to do sabotage in Europe.”

Earlier this month, the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, said that Russia was conducting an “intensifying campaign of hybrid attacks” that showed that the “frontline in this war is no longer solely in Ukraine. Increasingly, the frontline is moving beyond borders to the Baltic region, to western Europe, and even to the high north.”

Related: We assume damage to Baltic Sea cables was sabotage, German minister says

Intelligence agencies are currently investigating recent damage to the cables in the Baltic Sea, severed in rapid succession earlier this week.

Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said on Tuesday that the damage was presumed to be the result of sabotage. “No one believes that the cables were accidentally damaged. I also don’t want to believe that the ships’ anchors caused the damage by accident,” he said.

If that conclusion is confirmed, it would have to have been prepared some time before the US gave authorisation for Atacms missiles to be used inside Russian borders.

Europe could see an increase in state-sponsored attacks, including attempts at sabotage and arson, assassinations, and attacks on military bases, transport and telecoms infrastructure, a person briefed on the discussion said.

One former senior European defence official described the EU as “totally unprepared” to confront Moscow’s escalating hybrid warfare.