The Scale of Russia's Shadow War

Confirmed or highly likely incidents since 2021.

Confirmed incidents are those that have been verified by government or journalistic sources as being planned or initiated by Russian authorities. Highly likely incidents are those that have been reported by government or journalistic sources having in degree of likelihood of being planned or initiated by Russian authorities.
Chart: Michael Newton/Isabella Nieminen/Center for European Policy AnalysisSource: Emma Burrows et al.,“Russian Sabotage Across Europe,” Associated Press News, December 18, 2025, https://apnews.com/projects/russian-europe-sabotage/; Sahaidachnyi Security Center, “The Everywhere War: Sub-Threshold Warfare Tracker,”https://sahasec.org/tracker/; Nichita Gurcov,” ACLED data show at least 50 instances of airspace violations of countries on Ukraine’s western borders since 2022 — Expert comment," ACLED, September 11, 2025, https://acleddata.com/expert-comment/acled-data-show-least-50-instances-airspace-violations-countries-ukraines-western; Charlie Edwards and Nate Seidstein,“The Scale of Russian Sabotage Operations Against Europe’s Critical Infrastructure.” IISS, August 2025, https://www.iiss.org/globalassets/media-library---content--migration/files/research-papers/2025/08/pub25-095-the-scale-of-russian-sabotage-operations.pdf; and Open-Source Information gathered by CEPA staff.Get the data Download image