Covert attacks are far from last-ditch tactics. The Kremlin has long regarded sabotage as equal to frontline combat

Con Coughlin

Executive Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor

A leading expert on global conflict, international security and the Middle East. Con worked as a foreign correspondent for 20 years in the Beirut, Jerusalem, New York and Washington bureaux. More recently he covered the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the War Studies Department, King’s College, London.

Published 03 September 2026

Whenever Vladimir Putin resorts to hybrid warfare, such as the failed drone attack at Leipzig airport, it is tempting to conclude he is using such tactics because he cannot achieve his war aims through conventional military force alone.

With Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine in a state of stasis, and Ukrainian attacks on Russian infrastructure proving increasingly effective, Putin’s willingness to employ hybrid warfare is taken as a sign of weakness. If tanks, drones and missiles cannot achieve Putin’s stated objectives in Ukraine, then he has no option – the logic goes – but to resort to other means, such as mounting hybrid attacks.

The suspected primary target of the three drones located at eastern Germany’s Leipzig airport – it serves as a military logistics hub for both Nato and the German military – was a Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane which is used to ferry vital military supplies to its military.

It certainly makes sense that the Russians, who find themselves under intense pressure from Kyiv’s latest military offensive, should seek to disrupt Ukraine’s military supply lines. Targeting an enemy’s supply networks to limit the effectiveness of its combat operations has become a crucial feature of modern warfare. The tactic dates back to the Second World War when Winston Churchill set up the Special Operations Executive – the forerunner of today’s Special Forces – with his famous order to “set Europe ablaze!”

What Moscow is doing is thus not a new, desperate feature of warfare. Just because Putin is prepared to mount drone attacks at German airports or carry out arson attacks on London warehouses used to store Ukrainian supplies, does not mean that he is losing. Employing hybrid tactics is regarded by Moscow as being just as important as conducting conventional military operations.

Russia’s all-encompassing approach to waging modern warfare was first articulated in 2013 by General Valery Gerasimov, the long-serving head of the country’s armed forces, when he wrote a paper for a Russian military journal in which he argued that, to win future wars, it was important to supplement Soviet-era military tactics with “military means of a concealed character” – i.e. hybrid warfare.

Under what has become known as “The Gerasimov Doctrine”, a state must draw on all the means at its disposal to achieve victory over an adversary. These can range from cyber attacks against critical national infrastructure to undertaking sophisticated propaganda campaigns designed to exacerbate political instability.

Russia had already adopted these methods prior to Gerasimov articulating his new outlook, most notably during Moscow’s 2008 assault on Georgia. Prior to launching its military invasion, it knocked out Georgia’s internet and power network.

A more sophisticated application of Gerasimov’s military doctrine was evident during Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Rather than employing conventional forces, Moscow resorted to deploying so-called “little green men”, Russian soldiers fighting in unmarked green uniforms who were responsible for seizing control of key strategic areas of Crimea. Using such forces provided Putin with the cloak of deniability. When the West finally woke up to the reality of what was taking place on the ground the annexation of Crimea – including the Black Sea Russian naval base at Sevastopol – was a fait accompli.

Since then, Putin’s appetite has increased significantly for using non-conventional options against his foes, from the 2018 Salisbury poisonings to supervising arson attacks in May last year against property owned by former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.

So when, as he did recently, the Russian president warns that UK military sites involved in supplying weapons to Ukraine are legitimate targets for a Russian attack, it is unlikely to take the form of the conventional Russian military action carried out against Ukrainian targets on an almost nightly basis. If Putin does decide to launch attacks against British military bases, they are far more likely to take the form of an unconventional hybrid or cyber attack – one that, in a perfect world, cannot be traced directly back to the Kremlin.

If Russia wants hybrid warfare to play a central role in future conflict, then it is vital that the West finds an effective deterrent to counter it. This must be far more robust than the measures Germany has taken in response to the Leipzig attack, which amounts to little more than closing a couple of Russian cultural centres.

After the Salisbury attacks, the UK responded by mounting a global campaign against Moscow’s GRU intelligence agency, which resulted in completely neutralising its operations in Europe. As a result, Russian intelligence has been a great deal more circumspect about conducting similar attacks on UK soil.

The key to persuading Putin not to launch more hybrid attacks against the West is to demonstrate that, by using such tactics, the Russian despot ultimately has far more to lose than his Western adversaries.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/09/03/putins-hybrid-warfare-calculated-strategy-not-desperation/