NATO Deputy Commander Warns Putin Growing More Risk-Accepting

Russian President Vladimir Putin is growing "increasingly cavalier, dangerous and risk accepting" as the war in Ukraine continues and as he works to split Western allies, NATO's deputy commander in Europe said Tuesday.

Air Chief Marshal Sir John Stringer, NATO's deputy supreme allied commander for Europe, spoke at a security conference in Estonia against a backdrop of warnings from some European leaders that Moscow may test NATO's collective defense pact with bolder attacks, including sabotage and espionage.

Stringer said NATO members must recognize the "febrile environment" and respond with care, because Putin would prefer to provoke the alliance into an "overreaction." He described the boundary between accidental and deliberate incursions as "quite a fine one," pointing to Russian drones pushed off course into NATO airspace by GPS jamming or other electronic countermeasures used to defend against Ukrainian drone strikes. Russia could escalate such activity, he said, though that does not mean Moscow has decided to do so.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said last week that Russia might target NATO nations with deliberate drone or missile strikes while presenting them as accidents. French President Emmanuel Macron echoed that assessment and has asked his government to prepare a plan to shield critical infrastructure from possible drone and cyberattacks. Other European officials describe the Russian threat as serious but have urged calm.

A British defense official, speaking anonymously to discuss sensitive security matters, said the UK assesses that Putin is not seeking direct confrontation with NATO. Officials in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Russia, have also been more measured about the prospect of a serious escalation after years of urging Western nations to take a harder line on Moscow.

European countries have already recorded multiple incursions by Russian drones and several missiles, along with a covert Russian disruption campaign that began after the invasion of Ukraine. An interactive map tracking that campaign shows incidents rising from 59 in March 2025 to more than 210, spanning vandalism, propaganda and influence operations to arson, sabotage and cyberattacks.

In August, German officials accused Moscow of being behind a plot at Leipzig airport, where a drone carrying explosives was found beside a Ukrainian plane loaded with jet fuel. Last month, British officials said they disrupted a Russian plan to sabotage a drone factory outside London. Also in August, an Estonian defense company was set on fire and a weapons storage facility in Bulgaria exploded, though neither has been publicly attributed to Russia.

Many saboteurs are recruited online by Russia's intelligence services, and some do not realize they are working for Moscow, which makes plots hard to uncover and attribution often difficult. Asked in May whether Russia was waging a covert campaign against the West, Putin replied: "Name one proven fact."

Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal told the conference that while opinions differ on how acute the threat is, Russia's attitude toward negligence and toward deliberately targeting NATO neighbors is "almost the same." Both Stringer and Michal suggested the rise in covert attacks stems not from NATO's failure to stop them but from Western support for Ukraine.

Stringer said Putin is "looking at a whole number of things" to sow division among NATO allies because his campaign in Ukraine is going badly. Michal compared the Russian leader to a "rat in the corner," escalating activity in Europe to try to break Western backing for Kyiv while Moscow is under pressure.

Russia's frontline gains in Ukraine have been slow and costly, with more than half a million dead, even as Kyiv's deep-strike campaign against the country's energy industry has caused fuel shortages in 80 of 83 Russian regions, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, chief of the UK's defense staff, said earlier this month. There is still no indication Putin is stepping back from his goals in Ukraine.

Michal said Putin is trying to undermine NATO's collective defense pact by testing nations with covert attacks that are hard to attribute. But he called a conventional Russian military attack on Europe currently "improbable," citing the threat of a NATO response and the fact that Moscow's forces are tied down in Ukraine. High levels of malign Russian activity are "here to stay" until Putin changes his military goals, Michal said, adding that the best deterrent is to "back Ukraine."