The European Parliament pointed out that Russia is implementing strategies of hybrid war against the EU and its member states.
In December 2021, the Russian Federation demanded that NATO halt further enlargements, pull back forces and weaponry from the countries that joined the alliance after 1997, and stop operating within striking distance of potential targets of Russia. The latter includes most of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe.
Since then, the situation escalated into the unprovoked and unjustified full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Russian leadership has alleged it was due to the danger of Ukrainian NATO membership, an aspiration that ironically was a direct consequence of more than eight years of Russian aggression against that sovereign nation.
But Ukraine is only an object and not the strategic aim of a broader Russian hybrid war. This is a conflict between Russia and the West over the world order, and the conflicting ideas of the authoritarian “Russian World” and Western liberal democracies. A Russian victory in Ukraine is, however, a prerequisite for its global ambitions.
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