Russia resorts to violence to sow fear and confusion in the West

Despite Russia’s efforts and more than two years of full-scale war in Ukraine, Moscow has been unable to shift the Western public perception of Russia as an aggressor state or erode Western resolve to continue supporting Ukraine with aid and military assistance. Since cutting off Western support is a key precondition for Russia to subdue Ukraine, the Kremlin has decided to raise the stakes by launching a deliberate campaign of sabotage against Western nations, including Estonia.

This campaign, led by Russian special services, is intended to spread fear and confusion, driving Western nations away from supporting Ukraine. Another objective is to disrupt and dismantle the supply chains delivering military and civilian aid to Ukraine. However, the Kremlin fails to recognise that acts of vandalism, arson and other physical hostility, which pose potential risks to human life, only reinforce Russia’s reputation as an aggressor and strengthen further Western unity against Moscow.

Russia’s covert sabotage operations have consistently backfired, reinforcing the prevailing perception of Russia as a hostile force rather than achieving any strategic advantage. This pattern has repeated over the years, as seen with the 2014 explosion at the Vrbetice ammunition depot in the Czech Republic and the 2018 nerve agent attack in Salisbury, UK. Both incidents strengthened NATO’s unity rather than weakening it through intimidation. Yet, Moscow continues undeterred to pursue such aggressive measures in its attempts to achieve success.

As part of this campaign, Kremlin operatives have vandalised German war memorials in the Baltic states and sought unsuccessfully to amplify these incidents in the media to incite discord and anxiety. Incidents like defacing German war memorials with “Z” symbols, dousing them in red paint or toppling them have received limited public attention. Frustrated by this, Russian propagandists have repackaged these acts to fit the familiar narrative of supposed Nazi sympathies in the Baltics. Their spin relies on the allegation that while security measures have been imposed to protect German memorials from vandalism, no such measures have been taken for Soviet war monuments. Russian propagandists have framed this as evidence of alleged double standards by Baltic governments, insinuating Nazi sympathies and promoting the narrative of widespread Nazi ideology among the authorities and societies of the Baltic states.

This propaganda effort raises suspicions that the Kremlin itself may orchestrate some of these acts of vandalism against Soviet-era monuments. Following such incidents, Moscow’s accusations against the Baltic states, frequently voiced by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, have been particularly loud. Zakharova’s aggressive rhetoric may well be an attempt to conceal the fact that Kremlin operatives likely orchestrated these acts of vandalism to fuel their narrative.

Although the Kremlin is unlikely to turn its sabotage campaign into a strategic advantage in its confrontation with Ukraine and the West, Western governments and the public should remain vigilant against the escalating hostile activities. The campaign’s violent nature, possible miscalculations and the consequent risk of serious harm, including casualties, make the threat too significant to disregard. It is, therefore, critical for Western nations to develop effective countermeasures to deter Russia’s covert activities and prevent further escalation into even riskier behaviour.