Russia’s Conventional War in Ukraine has Made Its Hybrid Warfare against Others ‘More Dangerous,’ Kulkepp Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 24 – In the years before Vladimir Putin launched his expanded kinetic war against Ukraine in February 2022, most Western analysts argued that his regime was a “post-modernist” one, committed to “exercising power less through direct coercion and more through propaganda and behind-the-scene political technology,” Mart Kuldepp says.

            But the Estonian historian at University College of London points out that since that time, has both discredited that notion and reduce the attention that Western researchers have given to Russia’s use of hybrid warfare around the world (upnorth.eu/russias-war-against-ukraine-and-its-hybrid-war-against-estonia/).

            Kuldepp argues that “Russia also continues its sub-Article 5 aggression against its other neighboring countries, and the West in general. In fact, it is now even more dangerous than before, because Ukraine’s prospects for success are directly linked to the support it receives from its partners, and this is something that Russia hopes to undermine with its hybrid measures.”

            These Russian moves thus continue to merit attention, and they must be responded to in “bold” wars. Unless the West shows itself prepared to respond to them, it will be in trouble. And those countries, like Estonia that are on the front lines, must “make sure that together with our allies we will have the last word in this exchange.”