Russia is intensifying its campaign of hybrid attacks against Europe and France, French president Emmanuel Macron said on Friday.
Macron told a news conference that he had ordered his government to draw up a plan to protect critical infrastructure against drone and cyber attacks.
“In recent weeks, the threat – particularly the Russian hybrid threat – facing Europeans and France has intensified,” Macron said after meeting in Paris with political party leaders to discuss international developments.
He said Moscow sought to intimidate Europe and break the continent’s resolve in supporting Ukraine in the war with Russia.
“The result will be the opposite,” he said. “We are not intimidated, because we know that our security today and tomorrow is at stake in Ukraine.”
Macron cited an attempted drone attack at Leipzig airport in August, which the German government concluded Moscow was behind, as evidence of the changing nature of Russian aggression.
Russia says European allegations of hybrid attacks are baseless and the result of anti-Russian hysteria.
The Russian foreign ministry summoned Britain’s charge d’affaires in Moscow, Danae Dholakia, on Friday to issue a formal protest about what it called London’s “further increase” in weapons supplies to Ukraine.
In a statement, the Russian ministry said that by sending more arms to Kyiv, “London is placing itself in the position of an accomplice to the bloody atrocities committed by the Kyiv regime, which can only be characterised as terrorism and war crimes”.
A spokesperson for Britain’s foreign office called the summoning “yet another attempt to deflect attention from Russia’s barbaric full-scale invasion of Ukraine and discredit the UK on the world stage”.
Russia currently has no ambassador in London and relations are poor. The departure of the previous Russian ambassador, Andrei Kelin, in July prompted British media speculation – denied by Russia – that Moscow was downgrading diplomatic relations because of London’s role as one of Ukraine’s biggest supporters.
Poland has joined an anti-ballistic-missile coalition with Ukraine and other allies – including France and the UK – prime minister Donald Tusk said on Friday.
“From today, Poland is part of this major project ... we agreed on the forms and frameworks of this co-operation,” Tusk said in a video posted on X.
Tusk attended a summit on Friday of a new regional grouping of eight Carpathian countries, held in western Ukraine and launched by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
In July Ukraine and nine European countries announced an air-defence coalition that would include jointly developing a new anti-ballistic missile system as an alternative and cheaper solution to the US Patriot system.
Tusk told a press conference at the summit that Poland has prepared a new “significant” donation package for Ukraine, without giving further detail.
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“I will be very consistent here. No one will change my opinion that Poland has to support Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression ... History cannot divide us vis-a-vis Russia today,” Tusk said.
After his bilateral meeting with Tusk at the summit, Zelenskiy thanked Poland for the new aid package.
“Ukraine and Poland are strong neighbours, friends and partners, and we have one common enemy,” he said on the Telegram app.
Ukraine’s capital Kyiv came under attack from Russian missiles on Friday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said air defence units were in action against Russian missiles. Witnesses heard explosions in the capital. Military authorities lifted the air alert after about 40 minutes.
Russians have started voting in the country’s first wartime parliamentary election, which features virtually no opposition and is all but certain to secure the Kremlin’s political dominance. Polls opened on Friday and will close on Sunday. – Reuters
