Over the last decade, the Kremlin has elevated its hybrid warfare arsenal to a fresh level. From cyberattacks and disinformation to sabotage and social media manipulation, the Kremlin first mastered these tools in Ukraine. This then led to campaigns across Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Southern Europe following the full-scale invasion of the country. While many analysts focus on the front lines and the Kremlin’s hybrid tactics in east Europe, the Nordic region is frequently overlooked, even though it sits close critical Arctic infrastructure and has faced a rising wave of hybrid threats. Its vulnerability to Russian hybrid warfare, which operates below the threshold of conventional military application and response, remains a crucial concern.
There has been a crucial increase in the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare application in the Nordic and Arctic regions since 2022. Many reports have appeared shedding light on allegedly widespread Russian GPS jamming and spoofing in Sweden, Estonia and Finland, sometimes causing aviation disruptions and endangering civilian navigation. Simultaneously, there is an expanding number of incidents in which undersea fibre cables and pipelines have been damaged in the Baltic Sea area, frequently under suspicious circumstances and involving Kremlin-linked or obscurely flagged sea vessels. Since 2022, there have been many cases of optical and surveillance cable cuts in the Nordics, showcasing how the Kremlin is systematically investigating the Nordics’ resolve through hybrid tactics.
The Kremlin’s hybrid warfare activities in the Nordic maritime space show a clear pattern of leveraging state-affiliated but deniable actors and exploiting legal grey zones. At the same time, the Kremlin pursues a policy of deniability while inflicting constant disruption in the Nordic region. There is inactive area for both the EU and NATO to close the gaps the Kremlin continues to exploit in the area.
Subsea sabotage and strategical ambiguity
There has been an increase in hybrid warfare incidents involving pipelines in the Arctic and Baltic seas. In January 2022, just weeks before the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a fibre optic cable connecting Svalbard to mainland Norway was severed, with suspicion falling on close Russian trawlers operating in the area. This was followed by many another disruptions in 2023 and 2024, with eleven publically recorded incidents of cable harm across the Nordics. For instance, in early October 2023, an detonation at the Balticconnector gas pipeline, which connects Finland and Estonia, resulted in a rupture and shutdown. This incidental has been linked to Russian sabotage as “retribution” for Finland joining NATO in April 2023.
Many of these incidents are linked to “shadow fleet” tankers or obscurely registered commercial vessels. This year, the Swedish coast defender intercepted a Bulgarian ship after fibre optic cables between Sweden and Latvia were damaged, suspecting the Kremlin’s engagement in the sabotage of specified undersea links in the Baltic Sea.
These vessels frequently belong to the Kremlin’s post-sanctions energy smuggling fleet, which serves a dual purpose: continuing fossil fuel exports and operating below the threshold to challenge NATO’s ability to monitor maritime safety in the Nordics. In 1 case this year, a suspicious Russian-affiliated ship was detained and later released due to a deficiency of proof by the Norwegian police on suspicion of being active in causing “serious damage” to a fibre cable in the Baltic Sea between Latvia and Sweden. These deniable and deliberate hybrid tactics exploit loopholes in the Law of the Sea beyond its intended scope, exposing critical safety gaps and posing challenges to maritime safety in the Nordics.
GPS jamming and electronic warfare
The Kremlin has actively applied electronic warfare to mark civilian and military infrastructure in the Nordic-Baltic region. Only in 2024 alone, nearly all airlines flying over the Baltic states reported repeated GPS failures, especially over east Estonia and confederate Finland. These disruptions have led to multiple flight diversions and cancellations. For instance, in May 2024, Estonia even summoned the Russian embassy in response, but the Kremlin denied involvement, showcasing its hybrid playbook of plausible deniability.
Russia has previously employed GPS spoofing and signal jamming in operational theatres specified as Syria and Crimea to obstruct both civilian and military navigation systems. Their continuous application across NATO’s Northern Flank, affecting commercial flights over Finland, Sweden and Estonia since 2022, demonstrates a more assertive hybrid strategy during peacetime. The goal is not only to disrupt civilian aviation but besides to test NATO’s deterrence posture in ways that avoid triggering direct escalation.
Kremlin exploits legal loopholes in the sea
The Kremlin increasingly exploits legal grey region ships under third-country flags to evade sanctions or inspection while operating in contested waters. These ships, frequently part of the Kremlin’s post-sanctions shadow fleet, decision freely under the protections granted by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which guarantees freedom of navigation and obliges coastal states to offer safe harbour to vessels in distress. This legal loophole allows Russian-linked vessels to transit Nordic and Baltic waters while posing safety risks. For instance, Norway had to grant safe harbour to a damaged ship carrying ammonium nitrate, despite public concern over its possibly explosive cargo and Russian origin. EU and Nordic countries are now exploring legal changes to address this loophole, including mandating verifiable insurance, tightening environmental inspections, and applying counter-piracy provisions to defend undersea infrastructure.
Disinformation and digital manipulation in the Nordics
Alongside maritime sabotage and electronic warfare, the Kremlin continues to deploy disinformation campaigns aimed at weakening political cohesion in the Nordics. Sweden has been a primary target, with hybrid influence operations ranging from Cold War-era forgeries to fresh smear campaigns and the digital manipulation of NATO-associated narratives. These efforts regularly exploit polarizing themes specified as migration, military alignment with NATO, and social unrest to undermine public trust in government.
In 2025, Nordic fact-checkers uncovered how Russian “Pravda” propaganda sites have infiltrated major AI chatbots, leading systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot to mention or link to Kremlin-associated sources in Swedish, Danish, Finnish, and Norwegian. This technique, known as “LLM grooming” seeks to inject pro-Russian narratives into AI-generated content by manipulating both training data and live search results sources.
Despite EU bans on Russia present and akin pro-Kremlin outlets, fresh Pravda sites proceed to circumvent restrictions and scope Nordic audiences via automated article duplication, SEO optimization and device translation. The Kremlin’s increasing ability to form public discourse via AI tools adds a fresh layer to its hybrid playbook in the region.
While the Baltic countries are profoundly aware of the hybrid threats, another countries in the North are not utilized to the level and complexity of the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare playbook, especially its disinformation toolkit.
A call to action
The NATO-led “Baltic Sentry” maritime monitoring programme, launched in 2025, is simply a step in the right direction to contain the Kremlin’s efforts to undermine safety in the Nordic region. It sends patrol ships and aircraft to track suspicious vessels in real time, aiming to prevent acts of sabotage. However, deterrence alone is not adequate and proactive and coordinated measures are more urgently needed. Both the EU and NATO must adopt more precise red lines and make shared legal instruments to prosecute undersea sabotage, enforce maritime insurance compliance, and impose penalties for hybrid operations even in cases of incomplete or circumstantial evidence.
The Nordics must besides strengthen civil-military coordination and establish coordination mechanisms to tackle Russian disinformation campaigns and influence operations in the region. At the same time, Nordic states should work on ensuring seamlessness in surveillance, attribution, and communication between ports, coast guards and intelligence services.
Most importantly, NATO must be willing to support the Nordics in countering Russia’s intensifying hybrid operations in the region, which proceed to exploit legal ambiguity and capability shortfalls with clear precision.
Maksym Beznosiuk is simply a strategical policy expert and manager of UAinFocus, an independent platform connecting Ukrainian and global experts around key issues in the country. His work spans EU–Ukraine cooperation, energy and natural materials policy, governance in conflict-affected regions, and the security-policy nexus. He holds an LL.M. in Global Environment and Climate Change Law from the University of Edinburgh, a Double Master’s in European Studies (Euroculture) from Uppsala and Jagiellonian universities, and Bachelor’s and Specialist degrees in global Law and global Relations from Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University.
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