Russia's hybrid war/Germany strengthens defenses

2025-11-23 15:42:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

When do we call it 'war'? How does a 'war' begin? Especially today, in the digital age of cyberattacks?

"If a Russian submarine attacked and sank a German corvette, it would be called war," said Sönke Marahrens, a German army colonel and military strategist, at a recent meeting of German security forces. "But what if metal fragments were thrown into the ship's gears and it stopped working? Would it be war?"

Marahrensi is an expert on hybrid threats. At the autumn conference of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in Wiesbaden, he discussed the challenges ahead with German and international security experts.

Russia, Europe and drones: a new hybrid war?

Marahrens' example of sabotage affecting the operational capability of a German warship is a real incident that occurred in January on the corvette Emden, shortly before its delivery to the German Navy.

Europe is experiencing a steady increase in hybrid attacks. Military personnel, police officers, politicians and scientists have warned that the situation is serious.

"We are experiencing cyberattacks, sanctions evasion and arson on a scale never seen before," said Silke Willems of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency.

Identifying perpetrators is extremely difficult. For police and intelligence services, it is often unclear whether an attack is Russian, a criminal act, or simply a case of infrastructure degradation.

Comparison with similar incidents often provides a clearer picture. According to investigators, Russia is deliberately operating in a gray area, which complicates the response of the affected countries.

Cyberwarfare: the invisible weapons of cyberattacks

According to security officials, Russia is increasingly turning to profitable operations. "This is now being carried out by so-called 'low-level agents,'" Holger Münch, director of the National Criminal Police Office, told DW. Münch explained that these people often don't even know who is hiring them and are willing to carry out attacks for a relatively small amount of money.

The perpetrators are mainly young men with criminal records, many of whom have immigrated to Germany from the former Soviet Union. They are often recruited, for example, through the Russian social media platform Telegram, Münch explained.

Germany ready to respond

According to Münch, the Federal Criminal Police Office has significantly expanded its capabilities to combat cyberattacks. Even if criminals rent hundreds or thousands of servers around the world, the BKA can disable them, he said.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has promised that Germany will strengthen its response to attacks. "Anyone who attacks us in cyberspace should know this: we want to defend ourselves and we will do so in the future! We can also disrupt and destroy," Dobrindt said.

In the fight against hybrid threats, the German government decided this week that, in addition to the Federal Police, the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces, will also be authorized to shoot down drones within Germany. The police, for their part, plan to create additional drone units to protect themselves from attacks.

Will Germany have its own James Bond?

But it's not just Russian drones, incendiary devices and disinformation that worry politicians and security experts: more and more people in Germany don't trust state institutions, which poses a major challenge.

Fake news and lies about democratic institutions and elected officials, all fueled by complex and large-scale Russian disinformation campaigns, aim to destabilize the situation in Germany and other democratic countries through hybrid warfare, according to German security authorities.

To ensure that Germany remains resilient to these attacks, military strategist and Colonel Sönke Marahrens said that hybrid warfare must be accepted as a challenge for society as a whole. /DW