Rutte says Russian hybrid attacks will not weaken Ukraine support

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Tuesday that Russia's hybrid attacks against alliance members would not weaken support for Ukraine, hours after Estonia attributed an August fire at a drone factory to Russian sabotage.

Speaking alongside Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius, Rutte said Russia was "trying to weaken our resolve and end our support for Ukraine" but was "failing" both on the battlefield and in its attempts to undermine allied unity. He said NATO members are stronger and that Russia knows it. He also appealed for calm, urging people not to give in to fear as such incidents increase.

Rutte welcomed Estonia's public attribution of the fire to Russian sabotage, saying that sharing information between allies helped "attribute responsibility" and build a full picture of events. He said NATO had all response options available, some visible and some not, and that responses would not always follow a tit-for-tat logic.

Observador reported growing concern among European governments over a rise in such attacks, which fall below the threshold of what is considered an act of war or a military operation, citing arson and sabotage as examples.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected the accusations the same day, telling reporters on the sidelines of a forum in Moscow that Russia was acting to neutralise a direct threat by striking infrastructure used to arm Ukraine, according to the Spanish news agency EuropaPress. He said countries supplying weapons used against Russian territory were themselves waging war on Russia.

Sinkevičius said Russia was trying to sow fear and provoke divisions in European societies but would not succeed. Several European countries have accused Moscow in recent weeks of intensifying a hybrid campaign of sabotage, cyberattacks and migration pressure aimed at testing support for Ukraine. The Kremlin has dismissed the accusations as a deliberate exaggeration by European governments seeking to justify higher military spending and continued support for Ukraine to their own populations.