Murder, Drones and Hacks: Russia's Not-So-Secret War on NATO Countries

A look at what a new indictment reveals, why it matters and what a “hybrid war” is. 

By Olivier Knox

Sept. 17, 2026, at 4:00 p.m.

US News

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Vyacheslav PROKOFYEV|POOL|AFP|Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting in Moscow on Sept. 15.

A federal indictment released this week sheds new light on Russia’s “hybrid war” against America and its allies, alleging a brazen murder-for-hire plot targeting a Russian dissident in the Washington, D.C., area this summer.

The FBI said it had disrupted the plot against the dissident but did not detail how, nor did it name the alleged target. The Justice Department unsealed charges against five people it accused of being part of a “global assassination network” eager to “cause destruction and mayhem around the world, including right here in the United States.”

Officials described what they called the Russian Intelligence Services Network as “brazen, aggressive and far-reaching.” Since at least 2024, the network has tried to recruit Americans and others to spy on individuals and facilities, “carry out targeted killings” and pursue “acts of terrorism against civilian and military infrastructure in European countries that are aligned, or perceived to be aligned, with Ukraine,” the department said.

This is not, in other words, an artifact of Cold War history. It’s another piece of evidence that today’s Russia remains profoundly hostile to the West – and is apparently willing to reach all the way into the U.S. capital to squelch a challenge to the regime in Moscow.

What Is ‘Hybrid Warfare’?

Moscow has yet to test NATO with a traditional attack (missiles, tanks, drones, etc.) on a member of the alliance, which would almost certainly trigger the pact’s mutual defense provisions. But what about cyberattacks, industrial sabotage, disinformation or assassinations?

Welcome to hybrid warfare, which is designed to damage and demoralize but also – crucially – to fall short of attacks that might obviously require a military response. Some examples from 2026:

-- In recent weeks, officials in Denmark, Germany and Poland have accused Russia of involvement in drone incursions, sabotage, arson, spying on defense facilities and planning to use an explosives-laden drone to attack an airport.

-- This week, an Italian fighter jet on a NATO mission shot down a drone over alliance member Lithuania. The unmanned vehicle is suspected to be Russian and was believed to have entered via Belarus, a Russian ally. 

Moscow may have become more risk-tolerant after expanding its war in Ukraine in 2022. But America and its allies also documented deadly plots years earlier.

In one of the most spectacular incidents in 2018, Britain accused Russia of attempting to kill a former Russian intelligence officer in Salisbury, England, using the nerve agent Novichok. Britain was backed by nearly 30 other countries. As it had after previous plots, Russia steadfastly denied responsibility.

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The European and American Responses

After this week’s shoot-down, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for the European Union to develop a NATO-like mechanism to respond to incidents that “fall below armed aggression but clearly threaten our national security.” 

"Europe needs its own counter-hybrid playbook,” she said. “We urgently need a consensus on how to respond to certain incidents.”

America’s federal indictment is also a policy response of sorts, a blaring “we know what you’re up to” message to Russia – even if, as the FBI acknowledged, the people indicted are still at large and we can predict that they’re unlikely to see the inside of an American courtroom.

The charges landed days after ProPublica revealed that a Russian oligarch with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin had bankrolled celebrations around Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding in May, dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars on the events.

Whether something more assertive or comprehensive will come out of Washington isn’t clear. President Donald Trump has a … complicated relationship with Moscow, including longstanding interest in doing business there and a tendency to be more rhetorically aggressive toward allies like Canada than toward Russia.

It’ll take something a bit more robust than a symbolic indictment to convince Moscow to shelve its hybrid warfare playbook.