PNN – The New York Times newspaper listed the tactics of cyber-attacks using drones, exploding mail packages and sabotage and claimed that Russia has used these tactics against targets in Europe and America and has challenged the defense authorities of these countries.
According to the report of Pakistan News Network, the New York Times added: Three years ago, when mysterious drones appeared over rings of oil wells and wind farms off the coast of Norway, officials weren’t sure where they came from.
Stal Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, said in a recent interview: We knew what they were doing there. Some of them were spies and others, in my opinion, were positioning themselves in case of a war or a deep crisis.
Ulriksen said the drones were suspected of being launched from Russian-controlled vessels in the North Sea, including some near underwater energy pipelines. Given that they were flying over international waters, Norway could do little to stop them.
In recent weeks, reports of drone strikes over the East Coast of the United States have fueled fears of hybrid warfare. US officials claim that only 100 of the 5,000 drones seen there require further investigation, and so far none of them have been foreign surveillance drones. But the story of drones detected in late November and early December at military bases in England and Germany where US forces are stationed is different.
An American official familiar with such events, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the investigation, said: Military analysts concluded that the drones may have been on a government-sponsored surveillance mission. British and German defense officials declined to discuss details of their observations.
According to experts, the presence of drones indicates hybrid attacks or so-called “gray zone” attacks against the West, in which a set of military, cyber, economic, or even psychological tactics are used to secretly attack an enemy.
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The New York Times claimed that Iran, Russia and other belligerent countries have become increasingly bold in carrying out hybrid attacks against the West, including hacking into sensitive computer systems and alleged assassination plots, and this has challenged Western defense officials.
This American media wrote: How can Western authorities prevent these actions without entering into a full-scale conflict, and given that these attacks are designed to avoid blame, how can they blame the attacker? Hybrid attacks are not new, but they have increased in recent years.
The media added: One of the most notable and potentially deadly incidents occurred in July, when a series of packages exploded in Europe. The packages were postmarked from Lithuania and contained electric massagers with a highly flammable magnesium-based substance. Two packages of this type exploded at DHL freight facilities in England and Germany, and a third at a Polish company.
Western officials and Polish investigators said they believed the packages were a test run by Russia’s military intelligence agency to plant explosives on cargo planes bound for the United States and Canada.
This American newspaper claimed that Iran, China and North Korea have become increasingly interested in using hybrid warfare tactics, and especially Russia has used them against NATO allies since the invasion of Ukraine.
This American media quoted officials as saying: England, Germany, the United States, and the Baltic and Northern European countries near the Russian border are among the Western countries that are most targeted by hybrid threats, which is partly due to their prominent support for Ukraine. According to Western officials, last year, US and NATO intelligence agencies uncovered a Russian plot to kill the chief executive of a major German arms company known as Rheinmetall, which had made millions of dollars worth of weapons and ammunition for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia has repeatedly denied hybrid attacks against NATO and has ridiculed such accusations in some cases. However, NATO officials claim that Moscow has set up a special office to carry out such attacks.
According to the New York Times, NATO has begun developing a new strategy to counter hybrid attacks to replace the 2015 policy, which alliance officials say is now outdated. The new approach provides a picture of recent combined attacks to help the NATO alliance and increase the threat level.
The European Union has also stepped up its efforts, imposing sanctions for the first time in mid-December against individuals specifically accused of involvement in pro-Russian hybrid threats. It has also recently appointed four senior commissioners to deal with hybrid threats.
The New York Times wrote that officials and experts agree that a range of measures are needed to deter and protect against hybrid attacks. These measures include improving information and technical systems to monitor threats; Military exercises and other displays of power are meant to demonstrate the fact that even covert aggression does not go unpunished.