Postcards for the Lavrov camp

Yesterday, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda made public a warning received from the intelligence services: Russia may be preparing ‘kinetic’ operations against energy or transport infrastructure in the Baltic states or in Poland. Not a large-scale military attack, but limited acts of sabotage – serious enough to sow chaos and ambiguous enough to test NATO’s unity. Similar warnings had already come from Poland and Latvia. This news is particularly useful for the so-called ‘Lavrov camp’. It is not a political party, nor is it an organisation, and it does not necessarily take its orders from Moscow. It is a cross-spectrum political and media movement, present on both the right and the left, which, whenever faced with a Russian initiative, ends up adopting the narrative of Putin’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. If Russia arms itself, it is defending itself. If Europe arms itself, it is provoking. If Moscow threatens, it is bluffing. If NATO reacts, it fuels escalation. If a Western news outlet raises the alarm, it is warmongering propaganda.

The problem is that the Russian threat does not begin only when a tank crosses a border. It begins when depots are set alight, power grids are attacked and false-flag operations are organised. The European Union and the United Kingdom have just attributed the cyberattack on the Polish energy grid – which could have left half a million people without electricity during the winter – to the FSB’s Centre 16. For the Lavrov camp, this too will probably be a coincidence. Moscow has, of course, responded by speaking of scaremongering, brainwashing and pretexts to militarise the Baltics. This is the Kremlin’s script, but it is also the script of far too many Europeans: Russia tests the West, and the real culprit becomes whoever dares to notice it. Moscow works every day to make Europe weaker, more divided and more fearful. Denying this does not mean being a pacifist. It means offering Putin the certainty that, after every provocation, he will find someone willing to dismiss it as fantasy.