Analysts tell Al Jazeera that Europe lacks an assertive response to Russia’s suspected operations.
Europe is unprepared to counteract a new chapter of Russian military and intelligence activities in the Baltic and North Seas, experts have told Al Jazeera.
At the same time, they said, a growing rift between European and United States intelligence services is leaving the continent unsupported.
Last week’s European Union summit was a case in point. Belgium obstructed a plan to use Russian money to finance Ukraine’s defence and turbocharge Europe’s defence industry. Russia’s “shadow fleet“, suspected of espionage and sabotage operations, was not mentioned in the summit conclusions.
“Europe is no more ready today to face Russia’s military advances than it was in 1939 as Nazi troops were at the door,” said Joseph Fitsanakis, assistant director at the Center for Applied Intelligence in Coastal Carolina University, one of a handful of US institutions teaching intelligence and national security.
“Front-line states like Finland, Poland and the Baltics have no illusions about what is coming,” he told Al Jazeera. “However, I fear that, plagued by internal divisions and victimised by relentless Russian disinformation operations, Western European populations are not
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