Poland’s Krzysztof Gawkowski, deputy premier in charge of digital affairs, warned this week that Russia is waging a “cyberwar” against his country. Poland, he said, was “the most frequently attacked country in Europe” by Russia’s spy services. That’s not surprising, given the long history of Russian-Polish enmity, but there are plenty of other governments that share Poland’s indignation.
Georgia, a former Soviet republic that’s now independent, has faced political crisis and social unrest over claims that Russia is manipulating its politics. Romania was forced to void an election result and rerun the vote late last year on similar charges of Russian meddling.
The charge isn’t new. Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (2004-05) began in response to an election result that protesters asserted had been determined by Vladimir Putin. And the charges of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential race made headlines, though there was no evidence the Russians were successful enough to determine the outcome.
Today, Europeans are particularly on edge, because new elections are coming in both Germany and the Czech Republic. Russia has suffered more than 700,000 casualties in Ukraine, according to US officials. Its ability to wage conventional war has sustained enormous damage. All the more reason, European officials fear, for Russia to use cyber strikes and sabotage attacks to pressure their governments to cut their backing for Ukraine.
