WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Numerous US officials as well as the NATO Secretary General have charged Russia with engaging in “hybrid warfare” around the edges of Europe. However, NATO countries and the United States have been unable to present hard evidence to support their accusations.
“What you have in Europe is you have Russia operating at a level below open conflict,” Votel stated.
SOCOM is responding to the threat “by getting out and identifying where vulnerabilities are, helping our partners… giving them the training so they can identify the threat, characterize it and ultimately attribute it to where it is coming from,” Votel explained.
Votel attributed antagonistic cyber, media and information operations in Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries to Russia. He added, however, that such operations “are not crossing any particular open conflict red lines that people would normally react to.”
