A broken train line in Poland. Fires in Estonia. Balloons from Belarus. None of it is random — and all of it is costing Europe more than Moscow ever pays.
Europe is confronting a form of warfare that leaves no craters, no front lines and few public acknowledgments — yet steadily drains its security capacity. Western intelligence officials say Russia is deliberately overwhelming European states through a sustained campaign of sabotage designed to be cheap for Moscow and exhausting for everyone else.
The evidence is mounting. In eastern Poland, a passenger train carrying nearly 500 people was forced to stop after an overhead line collapsed, smashing windows and damaging tracks. Elsewhere on the same route, explosives detonated beneath a freight train. No one was killed, but Warsaw reacted as if the warning was unmistakable: 10,000 troops were deployed to protect critical infrastructure. Polish authorities blamed Russia’s intelligence services.
That incident is one of at least 145 cases logged in an Associated Press database that Western officials link to Russia, its proxies or its ally Belarus since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The acts range from arson and explosives plots to cyberattacks, vandalism and warehouse fires. Most cause limited physical damage. That is precisely the point.
European intelligence officials say the real cost lies in the response. Every incident triggers multinational investigations, intelligence sharing and surveillance operations. One senior intelligence chief told AP that Russian interference now consumes as much agency time as counterterrorism. From Moscow’s perspective, tying up Europe’s security machinery is already a strategic win.
The scale is accelerating. AP data shows arson and explosives plots jumping from one documented case in 2023 to 26 in 2024, with several more already recorded in 2025. Poland and Estonia — both bordering Russia and among Ukraine’s strongest backers — are the most frequently targeted, followed by Germany, France, the U.K. and Latvia.
Officials believe Moscow briefly slowed the campaign late last year, likely to avoid antagonizing the incoming Trump administration in Washington. That pause is over. “They are back to business,” one European official said.
Russia’s method is calculated. Rather than risking trained intelligence officers, Moscow outsources operations to criminals, smugglers and foreign nationals with little to lose. Recruits are often found in prisons or through organized crime networks. One suspect linked to sabotage of Polish railways had worked for Russia’s GRU while moving across borders unnoticed, exploiting gaps in intelligence sharing.
Even failed plots serve a purpose. In Lithuania, a cache of drone parts and explosives hidden in a cemetery was uncovered before an attack could occur — but only after months of surveillance and coordination. In Latvia and Estonia, foreign operatives with no local ties have forced authorities into cross-border manhunts stretching from the Baltics to Italy.
The strategy is brutally efficient. Europe spends millions to stop attacks that cost Moscow almost nothing to organize.
Yet the pressure has produced one unintended effect: deeper cooperation. Baltic prosecutors have formed joint investigation teams. British police are training officers to recognize state-backed sabotage. Intelligence sharing is improving, even as Russia tests new methods — from arson to weather balloons drifting from Belarus that repeatedly shut down airports.
For now, the damage remains limited. But officials warn the campaign is evolving. What carries cigarettes today, they note, could carry something far more dangerous tomorrow.
This is not chaos. It is a system — and Europe is learning, belatedly, that the quiet wars can be the most corrosive of all.
