The United States intelligence services have gathered information about the plans to escalate tension that the Kremlin is preparing and that would affect several European countries. According to the article by Xavi Colás published in The WorldRussia would prepare new drone attacks against Spain, France or Italy.
In The compassMarta García Aller interviewed the journalist to analyze and explain this worrying information. The journalist assured that Russia had already given “some warning signals” that the countries that helped Ukraine were enemies of Russia and, therefore, “objectives.”
“This year, we have seen a gradual escalation with drones over Poland or Leipzig (Germany). The other day, a Russian ship fired flares at a Danish helicopter (…). They talk about extending pressure on Europe, not just on Russia’s neighbors,” he explained.
“Specific attacks” with drones from the sea
According to the journalist, it is “very easy” to place a container on a ship in the middle of the sea and for a drone to leave from there in the direction of any area of any country. Colás says that they would be “specific attacks” and that drones would be used because they “have a limited destruction capacity” compared to that of a ballistic missile.
“A drone can close an airport, set fire to a refinery, destroy a house or kill people and the launch would be very simple because on the high seas nothing belongs to anyone and it is very difficult for us to find out who launched it,” he said.
The attacks on NATO countries have occurred within what is called the “war threshold”, but what would they have to be like to activate the joint reaction of the Atlantic Alliance? “It is the big question that they have been asking in Moscow for a long time because they are imagining where the war threshold is and acting below it,” he explained.
Political pressure on Europe to stop Ukrainian attacks
Despite this, “bigger things” are being seen in Europe and “they are getting closer every day”, because before they were the Baltics, but now “it seems that we are used to it being in a NATO country.” “That the United States has disappeared from the war equation is good news for Putin because Trump’s arrival has meant that the United States has stopped providing the bulk of its weapons to Ukraine, which has been left without interceptor missiles,” said Colás.
Therefore, the alternative that Ukraine has is to “attack” and “this year they are going to defend themselves worse, but they are going to attack better” and, since the Russians cannot stop these attacks because the country is so big as to keep all its refineries and warehouses safe, “what Russia can do is put pressure on the countries on which Ukraine now depends: Europe.”
The reasons why Russia would have targeted Spain, Italy and France
For the journalist, the three countries have an important point in common next year and that is that they “face elections.” In fact, in the case of France, “with two rising extremes – left and right -” that have narratives “very close” to those of the Kremlin or, at least, “favorable to partially closing the tap on Ukraine.”
“It’s not that in Europe we are going to become pro-Putin because the Russians are shooting drones at us, but, for example, Trump told Zelensky that there were other types of objectives and that there was no need to constantly destroy refineries because it would raise the price of oil,” he explained. A precedent is already being set there because Ukraine is being told to defend itself, but not to attack so much because “it splashes us.”
In this case, we are seeing a Europe that is “much more concerned about itself” and that now “has more influence over Ukraine because we are left to them”: “So that would be saying that this is fine, but don’t do this because look at the escalation that you are causing to us and to our electorates.”
