“You send a message that you are capable of penetrating a Western airport and Western Europe, and potentially it might be extremely damaging, but you stop short of causing any real damage. That would serve the purpose, because the purpose we have seen since 2022 in Russian sabotage operations was always to raise the costs of supplying support to Ukraine and raising the costs of protecting critical infrastructure.”- Andrei Soldatov, an exiled Russian journalist who specialises in covering the security services.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/17/us-cia-putin-russia-nato-attack-ukraine-syria-baltic-uk/
“You send a message that you are capable of penetrating a Western airport and Western Europe, and potentially it might be extremely damaging, but you stop short of causing any real damage. That would serve the purpose, because the purpose we have seen since 2022 in Russian sabotage operations was always to raise the costs of supplying support to Ukraine and raising the costs of protecting critical infrastructure.”- Andrei Soldatov, an exiled Russian journalist who specialises in covering the security services.
The attacks appear carefully calculated to fall just short of triggering Article 5, Nato’s mutual defence clause, intelligence officials believe. - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/08/23/russia-targets-weapons-factories-in-new-campaign/