How EU Will Respond to Russia’s Hybrid Attacks, Explained by FREEDOM

Russia is stepping up hybrid attacks aimed at destabilising European countries. Russian hackers have targeted the Dutch civil service, the Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD has said. In addition to cyber operations and acts of espionage, Minsk and Moscow continue to put pressure on the EU by organising flows of illegal migrants to the borders of the bloc. What measures are being prepared by Europe in response to the threats, FREEDOM tells.

The Gaze reports on this with reference to FREEDOM on YouTube.

Poland has stopped another attempt to break through the border from Belarus. According to Polish border guards, more than 250 attempts to illegally enter the country were recorded from 18 to 21 April.

‘All of them were stopped. Two people were detained for aiding and abetting. Stones were thrown at the Polish patrols,’ the Polish Border Guard reported.

The Polish authorities accuse Moscow-controlled Minsk of deliberately sending migrants to put pressure on the EU. Today, according to Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, such hybrid aggression on the part of Belarus is not abating.

‘We would like these crossings to be open, to function properly. As long as Belarus behaves in a similar way towards the Polish state, I see no possibility of changing anything in this area,’ Semoniak said.

The migration crisis on the eastern border of Poland and the Baltic states has been ongoing since the summer of 2021. After that, border security was strengthened. In particular, Poland has built a 5-metre fence on the border with Belarus, stretching about two hundred kilometres. Now the barrier is being upgraded.

‘An additional line of cameras was installed to monitor the outside of the steel fence at the border, LED lights were installed to illuminate the technical road, and additional observation points were created to protect culverts. In addition, an artificial intelligence mechanism was used to classify alarm signals from fibre-optic detection cables,’ the website of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration of Poland says.

Lithuania is following the same path. In response to new geopolitical challenges this year, the country's Ministry of Internal Affairs plans to upgrade surveillance systems at four border crossings with Russia. The project is worth €16 million.

In addition, the ministry announced the modernisation and strengthening of the route through the Suvalskis corridor. This is a 100 km wide section of the Lithuanian-Polish border, which borders Russia's Kaliningrad region in the west and Belarus in the east.

‘These roads are critically important for us in terms of security and defence. They have always been part of our civil-military planning as key land routes to support our allies in times of crisis,’ Lithuanian Deputy Defence Minister Thomas Godlauskas told Politico.

Helsinki is also in no hurry to open its eastern border with Russia. The Finnish government gradually closed all checkpoints with Russia in 2023, accusing it of putting pressure on the Finnish authorities by organising the movement of illegal migrants. After a review of the decision in mid-April 2025, it was left unchanged.

‘The threat of renewal and expansion [of the migration crisis] remains the same as it was before, it is still great. If this phenomenon continues, it will seriously threaten Finland's national security and public order in the country,’ the Finnish Ministry of the Interior said on its website.

If the level of danger increases, Estonia will mine the border with Russia, said Ainar Afanasiev, a representative of the country's Defence Forces engineering troops. The use of anti-personnel mines is prohibited by the Ottawa Convention. All countries of the European Union are parties to the Convention. China, Russia, the United States, India and Pakistan have not joined the Convention.

In March of this year, due to hybrid attacks by Russia and Belarus against EU countries, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland announced their withdrawal from the anti-personnel mine ban treaty.

Earlier, Dutch intelligence reported that Russia is stepping up hybrid attacks on the country's government agencies. Cyber operations include everything from physical sabotage of critical infrastructure to disinformation campaigns.