{"text":[[{"start":5.76,"text":"In August came an attempted Russian drone attack on a Ukrainian cargo plane used to transport military aid at Germany’s Leipzig-Halle airport; then, this month, a drone hit a train close to Ukraine’s border with Poland moments after another train carrying European officials including former UK prime minister Boris Johnson had passed through. In these and a string of other incidents, Russia appears to be stepping up its “hybrid” attacks on Ukraine’s European partners — from lower-level sabotage to more brazen operations with a potential to cause serious casualties."}],[{"start":39.6,"text":"European leaders including France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Polish premier Donald Tusk are sounding alarms that Moscow could escalate further. Tusk told Poland’s parliament Moscow might launch drone or missile attacks on Nato members, claiming they were accidental, to test the bloc’s collective defence. Danish intelligence last week made public its assessment of a “low but growing risk” that Russia could launch a limited military attack against a Nato country within months."}],[{"start":66.72,"text":"While western leaders are right to level with the public about the imperative to strengthen defences, such warnings should not shade into hysteria. Some longtime Russia experts are dubious that President Vladimir Putin would take the huge risk of testing Nato’s Article 5, which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all, with a large-scale assault. Donald Trump’s erratic nature has dented Nato partners’ confidence that America would come to their aid if Russia attacked — but means Moscow cannot be certain it would not."}],[{"start":96.12,"text":"Yet Russia seems intent on raising the costs and risks for European countries supporting Ukraine — and Putin would surely like little more than to humble and paralyse Nato, upturning the European security order. The less pushback he gets on his lower-level attacks, the greater the chance that he might just gamble on probing Article 5. European countries need a better strategy."}],[{"start":117.72,"text":"First, they have to respond rapidly and robustly to Moscow’s provocations. That can be hard; European capitals need to be pretty sure of Russia’s involvement before going public, but its interventions are intended to be deniable, sometimes contracted out to third parties. But European countries should be quicker to point the finger where evidence is compelling. Germany took nearly four weeks before formally accusing Moscow over the Leipzig incident, where the drone thankfully failed to detonate."}],[{"start":145.32,"text":"European capitals need to gauge responses carefully to signal deterrence to Moscow without triggering escalation. But they should do the most they can below the threshold of direct military action — from closing consulates (as Germany did over Leipzig) and expelling diplomats, to tightening or imposing new sanctions or doing more to clamp down on Russia’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers."}],[{"start":169.1,"text":"Such measures could be more effective if multiple countries imposed them simultaneously, should a Russian operation against any one country exceed a certain level. Some capitals suggested Berlin should have invoked consultations under Nato’s Article 4, permitted if a country considers its “security is threatened”. EU defence ministers on Monday debated new collective ways to answer Russian aggression. Establishing rapid-response protocols would be desirable — though the EU should be wary of overlapping with Nato and causing confusion."}],[{"start":202.24,"text":"European countries need, too, to step up preparations to counter any Russian effort to challenge Article 5 — with the aim of deterring it. The evidence of Putin’s 27 years as Russia’s paramount leader is that he respects strength but penalises weakness. As the Kremlin steps up its greyzone attacks, failure to make a firm response risks only emboldening it to go further."}],[{"start":228.78,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1790650828_3106.mp3"}