EU's Kallas Warns Against Backing Down as Russian Sabotage Hits Europe and Sanctions Deadline Lapses

A drone campaign that isn't hiding anymore

Since late September, Europe has logged a string of incidents that Russian officials have not bothered to plausibly deny. A railway carrying former Western officials was hit by a drone strike. A drone believed to be of Russian origin was shot down over Lithuania. Another washed up on Polish shores. A Danish military helicopter was nearly struck by a flare fired near a Russian aircraft. Dutch rail lines were paralyzed by an act of sabotage nobody has claimed, according to CNN.

According to CNN, Moscow's strategy is designed to make war "feel closer, without starting it" and to provoke Europe "without forcing a response." A European diplomat, granted anonymity by CNN to discuss the matter, said what's happening now "would have triggered NATO's Article 4 just a few months ago," referring to the treaty clause for emergency consultations. "Now, it's becoming almost a daily occurrence," the diplomat said.

Kallas: don't flinch

Kaja Kallas, the EU's vice president of the European Commission and its top foreign policy official, told Fox News Digital on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York that the goal behind the sabotage is straightforward: scare Europe into backing off Ukraine.

"Their goal is to intimidate us from not supporting Ukraine, from refraining to support them and pressuring Russia," Kallas said. "What is important for us is that we are not afraid. Because otherwise this kind of intimidation actually pays off, and then we will see more of it across the world."

Kallas brings a personal history to that argument. Her mother, six months old in 1949, was deported by Soviet authorities to Siberia along with her mother and grandmother during Stalin's mass deportations from the Baltic states, according to Fox News Digital. Her maternal grandfather was sent separately to a Siberian prison camp. The family spent roughly a decade in exile before returning to Soviet-occupied Estonia in 1959. Kallas herself spent the first 14 years of her life under Soviet rule before Estonia regained independence in 1991.

Coverage carried by WFMD included a detail Fox News Digital's own published excerpt did not fully spell out: Baltic officials, including some in Kallas's home country of Estonia, have publicly cautioned against reading Russia's recent provocations as preparation for a conventional invasion. Asked directly whether she agreed with that assessment, Kallas didn't dispute it outright but pivoted to Moscow's sabotage campaign and the need for deterrence, according to WFMD. Officials closest to the Russian border are not sounding an invasion alarm, even as they and Kallas agree the hybrid pressure campaign is real and growing.

Europe admits it's behind

Council of Europe Secretary-General Alain Berset, a two-time former Swiss president, was even blunter in an interview with Newsweek at the same U.N. gathering. Asked if Europe is ready for hybrid warfare, he didn't dodge it.

"We are not really well-prepared for this, to be honest," Berset said. He pointed to "weaknesses, probably in the energy systems, in the security system, in infrastructure in general," and said the threat isn't just drones. "The most important thing in this context I think it is about information and about infrastructure and information manipulation and information interference," he told Newsweek.

Berset also credited Europe with real movement on defense spending. EU member states are projected to spend more than $516 billion on defense this year, a 75% jump from five years ago, according to Newsweek. The bloc's ReArm Europe Plan aims to add up to $800 billion more.

Whether this closes the gap Berset described, or whether Europe is still building the plane while flying it, is an open question neither he nor anyone else answered on the record.

Sanctions fight exposes cracks

While Kallas talked deterrence in New York, the EU couldn't even hold its own sanctions list together back in Brussels. Ambassadors failed on Sept. 21 to renew sanctions on nearly 3,000 Russia-linked individuals and entities before a deadline that hit the next day, according to the Kyiv Independent. A temporary seven-day extension had kept the list alive, but that stopgap ran out Sept. 22.

The holdup: France and Slovakia pushed to delist Russian oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman in exchange for extending broader economic sanctions by 36 months. Neither country's stated rationale for wanting the two men removed was detailed in available reporting. Latvia blocked the deal outright. "EU sanctions against Russia must be strengthened, not weakened," Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze wrote on X, adding that Latvia "cannot agree to the widely proposed suggestion." Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha thanked Braze publicly, writing that "sanctions on Russia must be strengthened, not weakened."

Kallas told reporters the disagreement was purely about the delisting fight, not the substance. "Nothing has changed, that is very clear," she said, adding the EU still intends to introduce a new sanctions package targeting Russia's military-industrial complex.

As of this writing, no source confirms whether the 27 member states, who must approve individual sanctions unanimously, have actually resolved the standoff. The individual sanctions list, covering asset freezes and travel bans on nearly 3,000 people and entities, remains in a state of limbo tied to a negotiation between four countries with four different sets of incentives. Ukraine's foreign minister has made clear which side he's watching closely.