Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
It’s one thing when the warning comes from a single source, but it’s different when three intelligence chiefs make the same warning.
Three of Europe’s top spy chiefs have laid out in unusually blunt language what they see building on Russia’s western flank. The picture they drew was not of a distant threat, but of one measured in months.
Czech counterintelligence chief Michal Koudelka, Latvia’s State Security Service director Normunds Mežviets and the head of Sweden’s Military Intelligence and Security Service, Thomas Nilsson, told The Guardian in separate interviews over the past week that Moscow is preparing “more decisive actions in Europe” and warned that a limited move against a NATO country is now a plausible near-term scenario.
Koudelka was the most specific on timing. He said Russia could stage “a limited incursion, false-flag provocations, a massive influence campaign” against a NATO state within “months, not years,” while stressing that European services were working to prevent it.
An “escalate to de-escalate” playbook
The Czech BIS chief described the Kremlin’s approach as a strategy to “escalate to de-escalate”: push confrontation to a point where European governments conclude that continued support for Ukraine is not worth the risk.
Mežviets was more cautious on the operational picture, saying Latvian services see “no indications of an imminent attack.” But he acknowledged signs that Moscow is preparing for “more decisive action in Europe” and pointed to a shift toward targeting railway and defense-related infrastructure across the alliance.
Nilsson, who runs Sweden’s military intelligence agency known as Must, said he had seen no serious sign of Russian interest in genuine negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
He called the explosive-laden drone found at Leipzig/Halle Airport in early August a “gamechanger,” warning that sabotage operations across Europe would likely intensify in the coming months.
Leipzig anchors the abstract threat
The Leipzig incident is what gives the intel chiefs’ warnings a concrete recent reference point. On the evening of August 4, a drone laden with explosives was found near a Ukrainian cargo plane at the airport, which hosts NATO’s Strategic Airlift International Solution fleet, and was defused.
On September 1, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters that “the federal government therefore concludes that Russia is responsible for the hybrid attack,” and Berlin closed the Russian consulate general in Bonn and the Russian House cultural center in the capital.
Tusk echoes the timeline in the Sejm
The intelligence assessments dovetail with a warning delivered days earlier by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. In an address to the Sejm on September 17, Tusk told lawmakers there was “a real risk that the territory of one or several NATO countries on the eastern flank may be entered by drones or other types of missiles.”
He argued the aim of such strikes would be to appear “accidental,” in order to convince allies that “Article 5 is more theoretical than practical.” The Polish leader framed late autumn and winter 2026 as the most critical phase of the war so far.
Not every European official is comfortable with the volume of the warnings. Estonian Foreign Ministry Secretary General Jonatan Vseviov urged Europeans to “keep calm, carry on and support Ukraine,” pushing back against what he called panicked social-media discussion of a Russian attack.
