Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
“Events are moving toward escalation,” according to the source.
Finland’s and Norway’s leaders spent about 90 minutes on the line with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, pressing him to join a US-brokered track toward ending the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin’s readout was pointed, and a source close to Moscow has told the independent Russian outlet Meduza where things are headed next.
That source said that after the October 27 call, “events are moving toward escalation, including an intensification of hybrid warfare with Europe,” according to Meduza. The same source added that Russia “would not abandon its goal of capturing all of the Donbas,” the industrial region in eastern Ukraine that Moscow has repeatedly demanded as a precondition for peace.
The warning fits a pattern European officials have been flagging for months, from undersea cable damage in the Baltic to airspace incursions along NATO’s eastern flank.
The Nordic call
Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre initiated the call to deliver messages ahead of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States in Abu Dhabi. In a statement from the Finnish presidency, Støre said the war carries “enormous human and material costs” and warned the suffering would affect generations.
The two leaders also raised Baltic Sea and Northern European security and the importance of de-escalation, the statement said. The call followed a meeting Stubb and Støre held in Oslo on October 20 and was coordinated with Kyiv and Washington.
Putin’s version
Moscow’s own account turned the conversation back on the Europeans. Putin accused EU and NATO states of pursuing a “confrontational policy” that was prolonging the war, The Moscow Times reported, and repeated that a lasting peace is possible only if Russian interests are taken into account.
The trilateral Abu Dhabi meeting is expected in November, after the US midterm elections on November 3, the Kyiv Independent reported, though no firm date has been set. The Kremlin has signaled it is willing to resume talks as soon as next month.
A hybrid campaign already running
The hybrid-warfare picture Meduza’s source described is not hypothetical. iStories documented at least 11 damage incidents to Baltic Sea undersea cables between October 2023 and the end of 2025, and reported that NATO scrambled jets 3.5 times more often in July 2026 than a year earlier to intercept Russian aircraft.
An explosive-laden drone was found near a Ukrainian transport aircraft at Leipzig Airport in August 2026, the outlet reported. Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken told reporters there would be more such actions in the months ahead, calling the season a “dark winter for Europe.”
Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur has described Russia as “constantly testing the limits of Article 5,” the NATO clause that treats an attack on one member as an attack on all.
