Russia’s options after Zelenskyy’s warning of attacks on Europe

Introduction — the provocation, and why it matters

On 27 September 2025 President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly warned that Moscow is “checking” Europe’s defences and preparing, in his words, to attack another European country. The warning was prompted by a spate of aerial incidents — mass drone flights, incursions into Polish and Estonian airspace, and near-misses across NATO’s eastern flank — that Ukraine and some NATO governments have described as deliberate tests of allied responses. NATO leaders have publicly warned that any incursions will be treated seriously, and Russia has replied with denials and general threats of “decisive response” to Western provocation. The exchange exposes both the danger and the political logic of ambiguity: for Moscow, ambiguity can be a tool; for NATO, ambiguity is a stress that must be managed. 

Analytical frame: the Kremlin’s priorities and red lines

To anticipate how Russia might act, it is necessary to see the problem through the Kremlin’s internal prism. Moscow’s operational objectives are unlikely to be the same as Western analysts’ normative expectations. Russian strategic priorities typically include the following: securing strategic depth and buffer zones; denying adversaries the ability to project uninterrupted power to Russian borders; imposing costs on states that materially support Kyiv; dividing the Western coalition; sustaining a domestic narrative of strength and historic entitlement; and avoiding a course that would prompt direct, existential confrontation with NATO unless Moscow judges it unavoidable. Every option is judged against this bundle of aims, against resources on hand, and against the likely international reaction. The Kremlin will also consider against what degree of uncertainty — fog, friction, and political noise — it believes it can operate. Scholarly and policy observers note that Moscow has increasingly deployed a blend of kinetic action and hybrid measures — cyber, sabotage, energy coercion, disinformation — precisely because those tools can be escalatory without immediately provoking alliance war. 

Option 1 — continue probing and harassment without overt, sustained aggression

What it is and why Moscow values it

This option is the baseline: continuing episodic, deniable operations — drone swarms, overflights, electronic interference, harassment of shipping, or kinetic actions close to, but not definitively within, NATO states. The aim is to create persistent uncertainty, to impose costs upon allied air-defence posture, to bleed political will, and to obtain intelligence about rules of engagement and political thresholds in different capitals.

Operational feasibility and logistics

Probing requires modest resources compared with full conventional campaigns. Drones, cruise missiles, aerospace patrols and electronic warfare units are relatively cheap in marginal political cost but can be highly demanding for defenders: air-defence sensors must be spread, quick reaction alert jets must be kept ready, and command structures must be nimble. Moscow has invested heavily in long-range unmanned systems and stand-off strike systems since 2022 and has repeatedly used them for deniable or ambiguous operations. That said, persistent probing also consumes attritable munitions and creates logistics and maintenance burdens, so it is not costless. 

Legal and diplomatic calculus

Probing allows Moscow to claim deniability or misadventure, thereby complicating a united diplomatic and military response. From the Kremlin’s perspective, the ideal outcome is that allied responses will be measured and national rather than collective, thereby fostering political divergence inside NATO about how to respond. Evidence from recent incidents suggests that allied governments respond with protest and reinforce defence, yet remain careful to avoid escalation unless a clear, attributed attack occurs. 

The political dividend and domestic narrative

Domestically, small-scale harassment can be framed as strength, vigilance, or a necessary pushback against “Western aggression”. It preserves the illusion of agency without requiring the political costs of open war. For Western democracies, by contrast, the cumulative effect is raid-by-raid fatigue and an expensive, intrusive defence burden.

Option 2 — limited, targeted cross-border strikes against non-NATO neighbours or marginal territories

What it is and why it might appeal

This course contemplates precise strikes or limited ground action against non-member neighbours — for example Moldova, elements of Transnistria, or operations aimed at border enclaves — or the exploitation of frozen conflicts to create new faits accomplis. For Moscow, such actions can extend political control in the “near abroad” while technically avoiding automatic alliance response.

Feasibility and the occupation problem

Limited strikes to coerce political change can be achieved by long-range strikes, sabotage, deniable special forces operations, or support to local proxies. But converting a short strike into a lasting political advantage usually requires occupation, governance and resources to suppress resistance and insurgency over time. Moscow’s experience in Ukraine demonstrates the enormous manpower, materiel and political cost of occupation against determined local opposition. Any decision to seize territory would thus require assessment of force availability, sustainment lines, and the domestic political appetite for casualties. 

International reaction and risk of entrapment

Even action against non-NATO states attracts political solidarity from the alliance and may prompt deeper assistance to the victim state. Smaller states that appear to be under direct threat commonly receive diplomatic, economic, and sometimes military support. Moreover, such operations risk unintended spillover into NATO airspace or territory, particularly where borders are constrained or where air defences and command and control overlap. The risk of a rapidly escalating chain reaction is therefore real.

Option 3 — deliberate attack on NATO territory or forces: the escalation gamble

What it is and why it is unlikely but possible in extremis

A deliberate strike on NATO territory or forces is the highest-stakes option. Its logic would be coercive: to demonstrate that NATO guarantees are costly, to press for bargaining space, or to retaliate for what Moscow frames as intolerable provocation. Yet such an attack is a strategic gamble. The very raison d’être of NATO is collective defence; Article 5 remains the alliance’s central deterrent. Deliberate strikes would risk triggering military responses that Russia is unlikely to survive in conventional terms over the medium term. Contemporary reporting shows Western political leaders publicly recommitting to air-space defence and to collective support for allies, thereby raising the expected cost of any strike on NATO territory. 

Nuclear signalling and the risk of spiral

Faced with existential threats, Russian leaders have historically relied on nuclear rhetoric as the final layer of deterrence. If a conventional confrontation with NATO threatened Moscow’s survival, she might engage in graduated nuclear signalling to dissuade escalation. But nuclear signalling does not remove the immediate danger of conventional alliance mobilisation, economic strangulation, and extended international isolation. For those reasons, most Kremlin strategists would likely regard this option as a last resort, not a tool for routine coercion. The risk of miscalculation or inadvertent escalation — a conventional strike misread as the prelude to a larger assault — is acute.

Option 4 — escalation by proxy: Belarus, private military companies, or local proxies

Why proxy action is attractive

Proxy operations offer plausible deniability and the ability to apply force without uniformed Russian casualties. Belarus presents a convenient staging area, logistics corridor and political partner. Private military companies, most notably groups in the Russian orbit, give Moscow a tool to act with lower visible accountability. Moscow has previously deployed such means to expand reach while retaining a public denial of direct involvement in operations abroad.

Operational control and blowback risks

Proxy forces are cheaper in political terms but harder to control. A proxy’s indiscipline or ideological zeal can compel Moscow to follow through with direct intervention to save face or to prevent operational failure. Moreover sustained proxy warfare invites international measures against enablers, including targeted sanctions on financiers and facilitators, and may provoke partner states into hardening defences or arming victims. Use of Belarus as a staging ground further risks drawing Minsk into open confrontation and making her a direct target of allied counter-measures. Recent policy analysis emphasises the dangers inherent in overreliance on proxies and the eventual attribution likelihood in the modern information environment. 

Option 5 — hybrid escalation: cyber, energy coercion, disinformation and sabotage

The non-kinetic toolkit and its appeal

Hybrid instruments are central to modern Russian strategy because they can be escalatory, reversible, and ambiguous. Cyber attacks against critical infrastructure, energy cut-offs or price manipulations, orchestrated disinformation campaigns, targeted economic pressure, and clandestine sabotage all fit this model. They create political stress, sow division, and force expensive defensive measures, but they stop short of overt warfare that would immediately draw military reprisal.

Effectiveness, limits, and countermeasures

These measures are scalable and can be used selectively to punish or coerce. But they also drive victims to accelerate resilience measures — energy diversification, cyber defences, hardened grids — and to deepen cooperation with partners who can offer technical assistance. Over time, hybrid coercion incentivises the formation of collective countermeasures and legal responses that erode the initial utility of such tools. Analysts note that Europe has been learning quickly from successive waves of hybrid attack, reducing Moscow’s margin for surprise. 

Option 6 — a false-flag operation to create a pretext for wider action

The classic temptation and its modern hazards

Manufacturing a pretext — staging or facilitating an incident blamed on another actor — can, in theory, justify intervention while preserving the aggressor’s claim to be acting defensively. Historically, states have sometimes used such operations to alter the political narrative in their favour.

Contemporary intelligence omniscience makes false flags hazardous

Today however, ubiquitous satellite imagery, open-source analysis, independent investigative journalism and real-time social media make it much harder to sustain the fiction of a false flag for long. Exposure carries catastrophic reputational costs and increases the political will of other nations to punish the perpetrator. In short, while false flags can look attractive in closed information environments, modern transparency raises the likelihood that they will backfire spectacularly.

Option 7 — strategic retrenchment and consolidation: the patient option

What it means for Moscow

Choosing restraint, consolidating holdings, rebuilding forces, and focusing on political and economic resilience is a credible option from the Kremlin’s perspective. Retrenchment preserves resources and allows Moscow to exploit Western political fatigue.

Political costs at home and bargaining power abroad

Retrenchment carries a domestic narrative cost: how does the regime sustain a story of strength while declining to press forward? The answer could be to recast restraint as prudence: fighting another day, preserving the state’s strength, or bargaining from a preserved capacity. Internationally, a pause allows NATO to strengthen and integrate defences — which reduces Moscow’s leverage — but it also buys time to exploit softer instruments of influence and to prepare for a future, more favourable balance.

Which combination is most likely? A pragmatic diagnosis

Viewed from Moscow’s risk-reward matrix, the most probable path is not singular but mixed. Sustained, deniable probing combined with hybrid measures and selective use of proxies offers the most favourable ratio of influence to immediate danger. Such a posture exploits ambiguity, keeps NATO reacting rather than shaping, and imposes continuous political and economic costs upon Europe. Direct conventional attack on NATO remains the least likely option because of the almost-certain cost in alliance response and prolonged strategic isolation. However miscalculation — an errant strike, a proxy action that spirals out of control, or a poorly controlled escalation by a subordinate actor — could quickly force Kremlin leaders into a crisis of choices with catastrophic consequences. Recent reporting shows NATO capitals openly debating how to firm responses to incursions and to upgrade Baltic air defences — a sign that probing is beginning to provoke a structural reaction that will close some windows of ambiguity. 

Escalation dynamics and the danger of miscalculation

The most dangerous single risk is not an intention to start a large war but a cascade: a probing incident misattributed or amplified; a proxy attack that spills into NATO airspace; a strike on high-value infrastructure that triggers automatic or headline political demands for forceful response. In modern warfare the action–reaction timeline is compressed. National leaders face domestic political pressures that can make measured responses politically costly; military commanders face operational friction that can create rapid kinetic responses. The combination makes the strategic environment brittle. Analysts and policy institutes warn that the pattern of testing ahead of 2022’s invasion — massing forces, probing defences, political narratives of encirclement — could reappear in other forms, and that NATO must therefore balance readiness with political calibration. 

Legal and normative implications for European states and for Ukraine

From an international law perspective, aggression against a sovereign neighbour is illicit. Attacks on NATO territory would trigger collective defence obligations. States confronted with probing conduct must decide whether to treat it as criminal, law enforcement, or armed aggression. Those choices have legal consequences, particularly for the invocation of Article 5 and for collective measures short of war. For Ukraine, the choice is painful: Kyiv must continue to deter by striking back where it can, while avoiding actions that would convert a limited contest into a pan-European war. That ambivalence is precisely what Moscow seeks to exploit.

Policy implications and recommended responses

If the aim is to reduce the probability of dangerous escalation, the following steps matter.

1. Harden detection and attribution. Rapid, public, and authoritative attribution reduces the value of ambiguity as a political tool.

   
   

2. Improve combined air-defence coverage and rapid logistics. Probing seeks to overwhelm dispersed defences; coordinated sensor networks, shared early warning, and interoperable command arrangements blunt that advantage.

   
   

3. Expand resilience against hybrid attack. Investing in cyber resilience, energy diversification, and rapid forensic capacities reduces the pain of non-kinetic coercion.

   
   

4. Maintain calibrated, collective deterrence. Clear political signalling, including agreed thresholds for collective response, raises the political price for any actor contemplating strikes on NATO.

   
   

5. Keep diplomatic channels open. Even in tense moments, communication reduces the chance of misinterpretation and allows crisis management outside kinetic means.

Conclusion — the Kremlin’s calculus, and Europe’s choice

Seen from the Kremlin’s perspective, the highest return actions are those that impose costs while preserving deniability and avoiding existential conflict. That explains why probing, hybrid coercion and proxy action are Moscow’s most natural instruments. But those instruments are themselves dangerous; they invite miscalculation and can produce the very escalation Moscow claims to wish to avoid. For Europe the policy problem is therefore dual: to make probing unattractive by reducing its utility and to prepare collective, proportionate ways to punish and deter without lowering the bar to all-out war. The narrowest pathway to stability lies in combined deterrence, resilience and high-quality attribution — measures that deny Moscow the benefit of ambiguity even while leaving carefully calibrated space for diplomatic de-escalation.