The EU should be ready to respond to Russian hybrid attacks with measures that are “as painful” as the damage inflicted on European countries, EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said Thursday.
“If we are hit by hybrid attacks and we are feeling pain because of that, our answer to Russia, if Russia organised such kind of hybrid attack, should be as painful as we were feeling,” Kubilius said upon leaving the European Parliament following an address to the Defence Committee.
He said Europe’s response should not necessarily be publicly disclosed in advance.
“Our hybrid defence should also be of such a kind that we would be ready to make painful influence on Russian territory, Russian country, but we would not in advance tell,” Moscow what form that response would take, he said.
Kubilius was also asked about Russia’s warning that it could use its full arsenal, including nuclear weapons, if NATO sought to isolate Kaliningrad.
He said Moscow was escalating through threats as well as “real actions, hybrid actions, sabotage actions”.
“We are not afraid of all those Russian threats. We need to be ready,” Kubilius said, adding that the EU was improving its defence readiness.
“If Russia will make any kind of real military aggression against European Union member states, NATO has power to answer in a very painful way to Russia,” he said.
Asked whether Russian military factories could be considered legitimate targets for European countries after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said EU factories supplying Ukraine were legitimate targets for Russia, Kubilius warned: “If Russia will hit our factories in European territories, that would be Article 5,” he said.
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