Estonian interior minister: Russia's actions should be regarded as state terrorism

Estonian Interior Minister Igor Taro has said that Russian acts of aggression in Europe should be regarded as state terrorism rather than hybrid incidents.

Source: Taro in an interview with the Financial Times, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Sabotage, arson and other destabilising activities across Europe have been linked to Russia. Such incidents are described as hybrid attacks because they fall below the threshold of military aggression.

"Hybrid is too soft [a] word for this. [...] Russia is the biggest challenge and biggest threat to Europe . . . And they have been attacking Europe constantly. They're just doing it below the military threshold but they are doing it constantly," Taro said.

He described these activities as state terrorism.

"They are direct attacks on our critical infrastructure, on our military-related or defence-related objects," the minister added.

Taro was referring to an arson attack in August targeting Milrem Robotics, an Estonian defence robotics company.

He said the authorities had arrested several suspects within hours of the attack, adding that they had been recruited by Russia to carry it out.

"They hired them to do this," Taro said.

Estonia was also one of the European countries affected by a series of cyberattacks last week that caused refrigerated display units in supermarkets to overheat, resulting in millions of euros in damage.

Taro said Estonian authorities were investigating the incident and identifying other potential vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit. However, he added that it remained unclear who was behind the attacks.

"If we get all the data, if we get the evidence, we will do the attribution. We don't hesitate on such things because if you want to prevent it from happening again or try to minimise the risks, you have to attribute every time and you have to impose a price for these actions," Taro said.

Taro estimated that Russia was responsible for 90% of Estonia's internal security problems, China for 5%, and other actors for the remainder.

He warned that Europe needed to become more resilient to these threats and called for measures such as ending the issuing of tourist visas to Russian citizens, a step Estonia has repeatedly advocated.

"Don't be scared, be prepared. If you're preparing and doing risk assessment, then you won't have a catastrophe," Taro said.

He added that Estonia had been strengthening its cybersecurity capabilities for years.

Background:

• Recently, former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis indicated that he does not support describing direct incursions by hostile drones into his country as hybrid attacks.
• Ukraine's Ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, has also called for an end to hiding behind the term "hybrid".

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