Estonia and Europe face a broad, escalating hybrid campaign. In Estonia, public opinion now ranks Russia among the main threats, with information influence eroding trust and social cohesion; this pressure has intensified since 2022 and shaped the 2023 election won on a security platform. Across the region the pattern is consistent: drones near airports, incursions into NATO airspace, election interference in Romania, and damage to Baltic Sea cables. The purpose is clear: seed fear, fragment society, and overload decision-making while keeping the perpetrator unclear. The tactics are cheap to execute and costly to counter.
Inside Estonia the toolkit spans airspace violations, subsea and physical sabotage, persistent cyberattacks, and mass threat messaging. Old “active measures” are adapted to a digital environment through front groups, diaspora leverage, battles over language and history, and soft influence via conferences, culture, and investment that sell “Russia as an unavoidable partner.” These operations also test NATO by shaping perception and trust, and they feed polarization through extremist actors and social media dynamics. A direct conventional attack is not assessed as immediate while Russia is tied down in Ukraine, but hybrid pressure is likely to intensify. The required answer is steady: act on well-founded assessments without waiting for perfect proof, strengthen readiness and credible deterrence, and maintain long-term pressure on Russia’s capacity for aggression, paired with Ukraine’s resilience, to create conditions for durable stability.
This was stated in a lengthy interview with the Guildhall news agency by Andreas Ventsel, Professor of Political and Sociosemiotics at the University of Tartu and expert in security studies.
– On the one hand, a politician is responsible for explaining to society the challenges facing the state. On the other hand, a politician must take into account public sentiment from an electoral point of view. In your estimation, do people in Estonia perceive the Russian Federation as a threat?
– Yes. Various opinion surveys show that in Estonia the threat posed by Russia is seen as one of the main threats. In particular, the risks associated with the Kremlin’s information influence are highlighted, as they undermine trust in public institutions and the cohesion of Estonian society across ethnic and social groups. This trend has clearly intensified since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The 2023 parliamentary elections were also decisively won by the Reform Party, whose campaign centered on security issues.
– According to RUSI, alongside the full-scale war against Ukraine, Russia has significantly increased its hybrid operations against Western countries. Do you see such escalation by the Russian Federation?
– Yes. Drone flights near airports in the Nordic countries and Central Europe, balloons over Poland and Lithuania, incursions into NATO airspace, interference in elections in Romania, and cable sabotage in the Baltic Sea are just some examples of hybrid warfare that have been strongly linked to Russian intelligence services. Although it is not always possible to point directly to Russia as the actor behind such activities, the timing, context, and likely motives indicate that these attacks were clearly carried out by Russia.
– Toward what goals are the Russian Federation’s hybrid operations against Estonia directed?
– They primarily aim to generate fear, fragment society, and overwhelm or disrupt national decision-making. A key feature is that it is often hard to determine whether a hostile act was coordinated directly by a state actor or carried out by proxies. This deliberate ambiguity is itself a strategic tool that lets Russia preserve plausible deniability while still applying pressure and causing instability. Hybrid operations are also asymmetric: they require very few resources to execute – sometimes by non-state actors—yet mitigating their effects demands a disproportionate amount of effort, attention, and institutional capacity from the targeted state. For example, the recent distribution on Telegram of threats claiming imminent violent attacks on specific schools in Estonia, particularly in Tallinn, required minimal resources to produce or disseminate. Verifying these threats, however, placed a heavy burden on law-enforcement and emergency-response agencies, diverting them from other urgent tasks. This logic mirrors earlier Russian patterns. It is worth recalling that Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was preceded by a wave of false emergency calls designed to overwhelm rescue services and distract them from preparations for the real assault. In Estonia, similar tactics test institutional resilience, erode social cohesion, and probe vulnerabilities between linguistic, ethnic, or political groups.
– If so, please provide examples against your country.
– In recent years, Estonia has faced a range of hybrid operations widely linked to Russia and its intelligence structures. While not every incident can be conclusively attributed to the Kremlin, the timing, methods, and strategic context strongly suggest Russian involvement. Notable examples include:
- Airspace violations and border-area provocations: repeated drone and airplane flights and other incursions near Estonia’s borders, mirroring patterns seen across the Nordic and Baltic states.
- Physical sabotage, including subsea infrastructure: recent cases of cable damage in the Baltic Sea affecting communications and energy infrastructure.
- Threat messages designed to induce mass panic: anonymous Telegram threats warning of imminent mass violence in Estonian schools.
- Cyberattacks targeting state and private-sector systems: persistent DDoS attacks, intrusions, and attempts to disrupt public services, aiming to erode trust in digital infrastructure and expose vulnerabilities in an advanced e-governance system.
– The Russian services draw on the Soviet KGB’s subversive playbook. Have you or your country’s services recorded new methods?
– The old KGB term “active measures” still describes the landscape well. It denotes a broad toolkit for subtly reshaping another society from within – front organizations, manipulated media stories, diaspora infiltration, and careful amplification of internal divisions. The goal is not a dramatic breakthrough but steady, almost invisible pressure that weakens a target state’s cohesion. Today we see the same patterns adapted to a digital, more open environment. A clear example is the recurring attempt to use Estonia’s Russian-speaking community as a perceived “pressure point”: narratives around education or language policy are picked up from local debates, boosted in Russian-language media across the border, and then recirculated back into Estonia as if they were independent confirmations of a broader conflict. The effectiveness lies less in the claim itself than in the way the message circulates and appears organic. Another example is historical memory: as before, “correct” interpretations of WWII and Soviet rule are pushed; in spring 2022, the removal of Soviet monuments was framed as erasing the memory of the Russian-speaking population and the remembrance of the fallen. There are also softer channels – outreach to policymakers and business leaders through conferences, cultural exchanges, and investment projects that confer access and prestige while subtly promoting narratives such as “Russia is an unavoidable partner” or “Estonia is overly confrontational.”
– What operations do you see specifically against NATO?
– They are evident in Estonia – both a frontline NATO state and a convenient testbed for influence. From the information angle: border-provocation flights over or near NATO airspace, sabotage of critical infrastructure (e.g., undersea cables), coordinated cyberattacks, and even the recent mass threat emails to Estonian schools all serve a dual purpose. They are operational acts and tools of psychological influence. Their value lies not only in physical disruption but in shaping perception. Fear drives hasty decisions; if an actor creates fear and then subtly offers a narrative about what would “solve” the problem, that narrative becomes more persuasive. This is how radical or irrational domestic actions sometimes emerge. Fear can also erode trust: if Russia’s actions can be framed so that NATO governments or institutions appear unprepared or unwilling to protect citizens, internal cohesion weakens – a strategic objective in itself. Finally, fear mobilizes: high-visibility incidents—cyberattacks, air-space provocations, threats against civilians – attract attention and can rally sympathetic audiences or fringe groups. In this sense, the signal matters more than the act.
– Reports of violence within such operations (attacks on politicians, beatings of migrants) are more frequent. Ties between Russian services and extremist/far-right movements are no secret. Do you fear radicalization?
– Yes. As noted, a core analytic problem is identifying who is actually behind a given act. Far-right and other extremist groups in Europe did not arise because of Russia, but Moscow has amplified their visibility and influence through funding, networking, and information support – making them useful tools against democratic institutions. Because these actors have their own agendas, it is often difficult to point directly to Russia as coordinator – whether we speak of cyberattacks, assaults on politicians, violence against migrants, or targeted social-media campaigns. Western countries should be more confident in addressing this challenge. The series of drones circling major Western European airports, severely disrupting air traffic, is unlikely to be the work of hobbyists. Even without 100% conclusive forensics, we can ask: who benefits; what strategic purpose might it serve? The same with the sabotage of multiple undersea cables in the Baltic Sea: it strains credulity that several ship captains “forgot” to raise anchors and accidentally severed cables. These examples suggest our understanding of covert methods in hybrid warfare lags reality. Western responses are constrained by a conventional-war mindset that demands absolute proof before acting. Hybrid operations exploit precisely that hesitation.
– Your view of the conventional military threat to Europe?
– I do not believe there is an immediate risk of direct conflict. Ukraine’s extraordinary resolve on its own territory prevents the Kremlin from seriously contemplating attacks on other states. It is hard to imagine Russia “holding back” half its forces for another front while struggling in Ukraine. New sanctions and rapid advances in Ukraine’s defense industry, including long-range strike capabilities, further erode Russia’s advantage. More likely is an intensification of hybrid operations. Preventing this will require rethinking the challenge described above. If the West responds only where attribution is absolute, Moscow will keep probing weaknesses. Ambiguity is a feature of hybrid war, not a bug. Unfortunately, fear still shapes much of the Western response – fear of Russia’s supposed military might and of “weapons without analogues.” Yet these are the same systems that have literally broken down during Red Square parades – like the Armata tank. Real power and the myth of invincibility are different things. Strengthening deterrence requires not only military preparedness but a more confident political posture that acknowledges uncertainty, acts on well-founded assessments, and refuses to be intimidated by inflated claims of Russian capability.
– Do you agree that neutralizing the Russian threat requires both a Ukrainian military victory and regime change in Russia?
– It depends on how we define Ukraine’s victory. A year or so ago, Western partners often spoke of restoring the 1991 borders – or at least rolling Russian forces back to the lines before February 24, 2022. Today, discussions increasingly focus on compelling Russia to engage in serious negotiations, potentially resulting in a ceasefire that freezes the front. The core issue is not only borders but how victory is defined in Russia: as long as victory there means Ukraine’s complete subjugation, a stable peace is unlikely. In the Kremlin’s information space, this war is framed as an existential confrontation between Russia and NATO; under that worldview, any outcome short of Ukraine’s defeat is a loss, fueling revanchism. Even regime change would not necessarily fix this by itself. Imperial and “civilizational” narratives promoted for years continue to shape public attitudes – exceptionalism and a supposed historic vocation to dominate the neighborhood. Without addressing these ideas, the risk of renewed aggression remains. Thus politics alone is insufficient. What’s required is sustained Western military readiness, credible deterrence, and the willingness to respond decisively to hostile acts. Russian political culture, as the leadership’s behavior shows, tends to respect the authority of force more than of law. States dealing with Russia must therefore demonstrate resolve not only rhetorically but through tangible capabilities and actions. Only a combination of Ukrainian resilience, Western deterrence, and long-term pressure on Russia’s capacity to wage aggressive war can create conditions for lasting regional stability.
Exclusively, Guildhall.
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