By Necva Tastan Sevinc
ISTANBUL (AA) - Germany’s intelligence chief urged imposing tangible costs on Russia on Friday for its hybrid warfare campaign, warning that deterrence will fail unless Moscow also feels “pain.”
Speaking at the session “Destructive Ambiguity: Deterring and Countering Hybrid Warfare” at the Munich Security Conference, the head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), Martin Jager, said Western responses have so far been insufficient.
“We must make it very clear to the other side: if you continue to do such things, this will not be without consequences,” said Jager.
“This is the missing last link," he added.
Jager stressed that Western countries should more often demonstrate their ability to respond in kind.
“We should much more often prove that we would be able to do very similar things to make the other side also feel the pain,” he said.
He described Russian hybrid warfare as an inherent part of Moscow’s military doctrine, aimed at dividing NATO, manipulating elections and weakening the EU.
He cited sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation, drone incursions and espionage as key tools.
“Deterrence is not working yet,” he said, urging a more operational posture and a “whole-of-government approach,” stressing that “the public is the main target.”
Moldovan President Maia Sandu said her country had experienced “probably all the elements of hybrid war,” highlighting cognitive and information warfare as the most dangerous component.
“In the case of Moldova, Russia’s narrative has been: you are a small country, you have a weak state,” she said, adding that Moscow sought to portray the EU as incompatible with Moldova’s “traditional values.”
She said on Election Day, the Central Electoral Commission website faced “almost 1 billion malicious requests” in an attempt to discredit the vote.
“Just one troll farm … reached 35 million views in a country with 2.4 million people,” she added, estimating that Russia spent the equivalent of 2% of Moldova’s GDP on interference efforts last year.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said democracies must remain cautious but firm.
“We have not exhausted those possibilities,” Kristersson said when asked about countering Russia’s so-called shadow fleet in the Baltic Sea. “Hurting the Russian economy is another way of doing that.”
NATO Military Committee Chair Giuseppe Cavo Dragone stressed the need for proactive measures.
“If I know in advance that something is going to happen in this hybrid field … doing something proportional could be an option,” he said, suggesting preemptive actions in cyber or electronic warfare “could save lives.”
But he acknowledged that NATO’s actions are constrained by democratic values. “We have a lot of limits given to us by our morale, by our ethic, that our counterparts doesn’t have,” he said.