Eastern Europe is Joining Ukraine… Russia Is About to Be CRUSHED

Russia just keeps on pushing.

As Putin tries to  prop up a failing invasion of Ukraine, he orders   the launch of drones.

Not all of those drones are  aimed at Ukraine.

Many have been ending up in NATO   airspace, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg  of Russia’s hybrid war strategy.

Now, Eastern   Europe has had enough.

Putin has crossed an  unforgivable line, and preparations are underway   for a face-off.

Alliances are being formed.

Plans  are being made.

And the message being sent to   Putin is clear: Get out of Europe or be crushed.

And the nation delivering that message the loudest   right now is one that you might not expect:  Bulgaria.

On March 7, the news broke that there   had been yet another Russian drone incursion  into European airspace.

This time, the target   was Sofia.

The capital of Bulgaria was forced to  temporarily shut down its Vasil Levski Airport   after security systems identified a drone  hovering in the vicinity of the airport.

Bulgarian   authorities were quick to respond, as Air Traffic  Control and Border Police coordinated to reroute   planes and ensure the safety of everybody at the  airport.

The incident was brief.

The drone was   soon neutralized.

And though Bulgaria was cagey  about revealing where it believed the drone had   come from, with some even suggesting that an  Iranian drone could have traveled all the way   into its territory, there is really only one  likely culprit.

Russia seems to be at it again,   and Bulgaria isn’t taking this latest incursion  lying down.

It knows that what it experienced   in early March is the tip of a hybrid war  strategy that runs much deeper and has been   going on for far longer than many in Europe want  to admit.

The reality is that Russia is already   at war with Europe, just not in a conventional  way.

Bulgaria is the latest victim, and we’ll be   digging a lot deeper into Russia’s hybrid strategy  in a few minutes.

Before that, there’s Bulgaria’s   response.

The country has gone a lot further  than shutting down an airport for a few hours.

In the wake of the drone incursion, Bulgaria has  been busy building alliances and covering its   bases.

Still wary about the possibility of Iran’s  involvement, the nation has announced heightened   cooperation with Greece, which is a NATO ally  and another country on the Eastern front that   is very aware of how dangerous hybrid warfare can  be.

Greece will now deploy F-16 fighter jets and   a Patriot air defense system on its own territory  to help guard the airspace of its neighbor to the   north, following a direct request from Sofia.

Bulgaria has also reaffirmed its support of the   PURL initiative, through which EU and NATO member  countries can purchase weapons from the United   States for use by Ukraine in its defense of its  territory against Russia.

What we’re seeing here   is a nation that has been shocked into action.

And here’s where its response gets really serious.

Beyond its recommitment to PURL, Bulgaria has  also blared a message to Putin that his hybrid   warfare tactics not only don’t scare Bulgaria but  have forced the type of response that is the exact   opposite of what Putin wants to achieve.

Far from  panicking or backing down, Bulgaria has signed a   10-year defense deal with Ukraine.

Announced on  March 30, the deal will see Bulgaria, which Le   Monde characterizes as a major arms manufacturer,  cooperate with Ukraine on the production of drones   and several other types of weapons.

It opens the  door for joint production on both Bulgarian and   Ukrainian territory, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr  Zelenskyy has announced, and the length of the   deal is designed to make it possible for the two  nations to fully systematize their approach.

That
may indeed be the case.

However, a decade-long  deal is also a signal to Putin that Bulgaria   believes Ukraine will remain a sovereign state  for the long term.

For that to be the case,   Russia must lose in Ukraine.

Putin is watching as  a former member of the Soviet Union has responded   to his hybrid warfare strategy by strengthening  its ties with the one country from which Russia   wants Bulgaria to keep away.

Partnerships  between defense companies are going to be formed.

Cooperation between Bulgaria and Ukraine is going  to take place at the governmental level.

Russia   and its allies thought sending a drone into Sofia  would divide and intimidate.

All that Putin has   succeeded in doing is being the catalyst for a new  and stronger alliance that stands against Russia.

Right now, Europe needs that sort of alliance.

NATO needs it, too.

A drone over Sofia is just   one of many examples of Russia being at war with  Europe.

The Center for European Policy Analysis,   or CEPA, said in a March 31 report that what we’re  seeing all throughout Europe right now is a shadow   war that seems to have no end.

Europe, it says, is  no longer merely a witness to the war in Ukraine   and Russia’s acts of aggression.

It has become a  target of a systematic shadow campaign in which   Russia is attempting to dismantle the European  structure and sow the seeds of chaos within   the nations that it believes pose the greatest  threat to Putin’s desire to create a new version   of the Russian Empire.

Missiles aren’t flying, and  Russian forces aren’t invading the rest of Europe   as they are in Ukraine.

Sabotage, surveillance,  cybercrime, and aerial incursions are the weapons   of this shadow war, and it is a fight that  Russia has waged since at least 2022, and one   to which Europe needs to wake up to the realities.

Consistent escalation of this shadow war is what   takes Russia’s actions from isolated tactics to  a cohesive strategy.

Russia is taking advantage   of the typical European deterrence models, which  CEPA says presume that an adversary will weigh   risks and adjust its actions as a direct response  to the likely punishment that will be meted out.

Russia isn’t that type of adversary.

“Russian  intelligence and security services are rewarded   for initiative rather than restraint.

Operations  need not achieve specific strategic objectives in   order to be validated; they need only demonstrate  action,” CEPA notes.

That’s a problem for all of   Europe.

Russia’s system rewards escalation, and  Europe’s deterrence method doesn’t punish that   escalation enough to get Russia to stop.

What has  developed from this mismatch of military policy is   a one-sided non-traditional war in which Europe is  on the losing side.

Bulgaria knows this.

It’s just   seen an example of Russia’s strategy in Sofia,  and it’s responding by strengthening its borders   against aerial threats and signing agreements with  Ukraine that will ultimately serve to strengthen   the traditional front that Europe has against  Putin’s aggression.

But for Russia, its shadow war   breaks down into four categories of attack, all of  which have been on the rise since Putin launched   the Ukraine invasion.

Those categories are simple:  Proxies and infiltration, undersea and energy,   aerial incursions, and cyber operations.

Combined,  they are the spears of Russia’s shadow war,   and a drone incursion into Bulgaria is just the  tip of a massive iceberg that Europe needs to get   busy melting.

We’ll start with the proxies and  infiltration tactics.

Right under the collective   European nose, Russia has built a vast network  of proxies and criminal enterprises that operate   within the territory of European nations.

Arson,  sabotage, intimidation, and surveillance are the   weapons chosen by these proxy groups, and they  have been very effective.

By using what amounts   to third-party actors, Russia is able to claim  it has no knowledge of incidents that just so   happen to serve its ends, which in turn renders  the European deterrence model that we mentioned   completely moot.

How can you deter an enemy that  isn’t fighting by traditional rules? There are
more examples of this proxy and infiltration  approach than are possible to count.

Chatham   House says that there are now cases of people in  the U.K.

who are allegedly working for Russian   intelligence.

Germany has arrested individuals on  suspicion of planning attacks on Russia’s behalf.

A spate of railway derailments in Sweden had  Russia’s fingerprints all over it.

And in Estonia,   which is key to the entire Eastern shield that  NATO has erected against Russia, security services   are noting intense efforts by Russian actors to  recruit local citizens to their cause, likely   with the intention of creating a force capable  of attacking the government.

This is Russia   attempting to wear down Europe as a collective.

The sabotage conducted by proxies, infiltrators,   and turncoats is designed to create division  and confusion in the countries that are being   targeted.

And it often works.

As we speak, there  is a pro-Russian contingent inside Bulgaria that   is decrying the agreement that the country just  signed with Ukraine.

There are pro-Kremlin parties   in Bulgaria that are likely to use this agreement  as a platform ahead of parliamentary elections set   to take place on April 19.

Putin’s machinations  are made clear here, and that sort of division   is the reason why there was a fourfold increase in  Russian sabotage operations across Europe in 2024.

Speaking of sabotage, Russia has turned its roving  shadow war eye to some of the most important   undersea infrastructure that keeps Europe running.

That’s the second part of the four-part shadow war   plan.

And this is exactly the kind of thing that  we cover at The Military Show.

This is why we make   videos – to explain how power really moves.

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CEPA  notes that the undersea cables and other energy   infrastructure that Russia has been targeting  throughout Europe are vulnerable due to how   essential they are to both civilian and military  life.

Again, Russia isn’t taking the same approach   in Europe as it is in Ukraine.

Missiles and drones  aren’t striking power plants.

Russia’s approach   is far sneakier, as it looks to exploit sea and  ocean-wide gaps in Europe’s defenses to degrade   communications and create confusion in military  structures throughout Europe.

Ships, sometimes   belonging to Russia and at other times seemingly  innocuous “civilian” vessels, are being caught   lingering around the vast undersea cable networks  that keep Europe ticking.

By April 7, 2025,   there had been at least two incidents of undersea  sabotage during the previous 18 months in the Gulf   of Finland alone.

NATO’s eastern flank was again  the target.

The Baltic Sea has been even more of   a target.

Between 2022 and April 2025, there had  been six suspected sabotage incidents in that sea,   and 11 known undersea cables had been cut or  otherwise damaged since 2023, Politico reports.

As with its proxy and infiltration methods, this  is all being done in a way that provides plausible   deniability for Russia.

Everybody, especially in  Eastern Europe, knows who is behind these acts of   underwater sabotage.

But without incontrovertible  proof, and with Russia knowing just how far to   push before it crosses the line into conventional  acts of war, there can be no real reprisal.

Russia   is finding the communications and energy cracks  in Europe’s undersea cable empire.

And it’s also   pushing buttons and testing boundaries in the  air.

The drone that entered Sofia’s airspace   is just one of a multitude of examples that we’ve  seen of what appear to be Russian assets entering   the airspace of NATO nations to cause chaos.

And often, these incursions have timing that   indicates that Putin is actively trying to poke  the NATO bear, likely because he is confident   that immediate reprisals against Russian territory  won’t happen.

Take the announcement of Operation   Eastern Sentry on September 12, 2025, as an  example.

That operation was announced following a   Russian drone incursion into Poland.

But less than  24 hours after the announcement of the operation   was made, a Russian drone entered Romanian  airspace.

And less than a week later, a trio   of Russian MiG-31 fighter jets flew into Estonian  airspace and lingered for 12 minutes, purposefully   ignoring all requests for information, until  NATO had to scramble jets of its own to escort   the Russian fighters away from the Eastern flank.

Since then, we’ve seen Belarusian weather balloons   fly over Lithuania, Russian drones encroach  on the territory of U.

S.

bases in Estonia,   and many more.

In 2025 alone, The Conversation  reports, Russian aerial assets tested NATO   airspace 18 times.

That was three times the  number of incursions recorded in 2024, and this   latest drone in Bulgarian airspace seems to be an  indicator that Putin isn’t going to be abandoning   the third part of Russia’s shadow war strategy any  time soon.

Why would he? Russia is mostly getting   away with all of this.

At least, that’s what Putin  thinks.

Finally, there are the cyber operations.

Russian cyberattacks have been evolving.

Where  they once targeted information technology on   a general level, they have since become more  focused on operational systems, such as energy   grids and transportation networks.

Disinformation  is also a key tool for Russia on the cyber front.

By flooding social media with bots and false  actors, Russia is able to manipulate what many   use as one of their primary sources of information  to influence elections and guide public sentiment   outside of its own territory.

The irony here is  that Russia is cracking down on open internet   access internally, even as it takes advantage  of that same sort of access to propagate Putin’s   agenda elsewhere.

King’s College London highlights  how pervasive these cyber efforts are.

It says   that between November 2023 and November 2024,  it recorded 505 incidents of foreign information   manipulation and interference.

Those incidents  involved 25 platforms, targeted 90 countries,   involved 322 organizations, involved 38,000  channels, and led to the production of 68,000   pieces of content.

Ukraine, Germany, France, and  Moldova were among the most targeted countries,   and these social media-based operations show  us that Russia’s cyber war isn’t just about   shutting down systems.

They’re about influencing  opinion.

Again, that word “division” comes to the   fore.

Through its cyber campaigns, Russia can  hurt its targets directly and create the sorts   of polarized political atmospheres that we see  in places like the U.S.

and the U.K.

right now.

Europe is trying to fight back on this front.

In  December 2025, the European Council announced the   sanctioning of two entities and 12 individuals who  had been involved in information manipulation and   cyberattacks.

Important moves, yes.

But nowhere  near at the scale needed to stop Russia’s cyber   exploits.

And that’s the big problem that Europe  faces.

While Russia wages its shadow war, many in   Europe either don’t really know what’s coming or  they mischaracterize the shadow war as something   it isn’t.

Within many European countries, the  types of sabotage and cybercrimes that Russia   commits are often dealt with via criminal and  civilian law enforcement frameworks.

Cable   sabotage is often treated as if it’s the result  of maritime accidents.

Putin knows all of this,   which is why Russia gets away with so much of  what it does on the hybrid front.

What Russia   does isn’t treated as repeated acts of war.

They’re crimes for which Russia claims it can’t   be held to account, and nothing can be done  about any of it.

Even on the military front,   it could be argued that the EU and NATO haven’t  been doing enough to stop Russia.

Euromaidan   Press reports that Bruno Kahl, who was the head  of the German Federal Intelligence Service,   predicts that Russia may attack a NATO nation by  the end of the 2020s.

Others, including Carsten   Breuer, who is the General Inspector of the German  military, have made similar claims.

Warning after   warning is ringing out in Europe that traditional  deterrence isn’t working.

And yet, Europe still   isn’t ready for the shadow war to transform into  a conventional one.

According to Euromaidan Press,   Europe may not be ready until 2035 – five years,  at best, after many NATO generals warn that Russia   will go on the attack.

At least, some of Europe  won’t be ready.

On the continent’s eastern flank,   we’re starting to see preparations accelerate.

Bulgaria is the perfect example.

It’s seeking   assistance from Greece and Ukraine to help it  combat the inevitable Russian threat.

According   to RFU News, several other European countries are  doing the same.

For over four years, Ukraine has   defended itself brilliantly against the type of  campaign that Putin may intend to wage in Europe.

Ukraine now has a stronger defense industrial  base that has developed a range of counter-drone   technologies, such as interceptor drones and  electronic warfare capabilities.

Bulgaria is now   going to benefit from those technologies.

So are  Denmark, Finland, and Latvia, all of which have   signed partnerships with Ukraine under the Build  for Ukraine initiative.

We’re starting to see the   integration of Ukraine’s know-how into Eastern  Europe.

That may well be the perfect counter   to Putin’s shadow war.

An approach that is meant  to divide is instead starting to create a level   of unity within Europe, at least in the eastern  and Nordic regions, which is the perfect counter   to everything that Russia is doing.

Preparations  for war are already well underway in many of the   eastern territories.

Bulgaria is only now waking  up to the threat that Russia poses and is starting   to prepare.

In Latvia, a NATO battlegroup that  is anchored by a German brigade is being formed   and will be ready by 2027.

Poland has emerged as  one of the strongest European nations.

It spent   4.5% of its gross domestic product on defense in  2025, which is the highest percentage of any NATO   member, and 54% of its defense spending is devoted  to building weapons rather than covering salaries   and costs.

All three of the Baltic states of  Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have been investing   heavily in border defenses, as has Poland.

What  we’re seeing here is the seeds being planted in   Eastern Europe.

While many on the continent dither  and dally, seeming to be constantly unsure of how   to respond to the shadow war even as generals warn  that Russia is preparing to go further, the likes   of Bulgaria, Poland, and the Baltic nations are  getting ready for what they believe is to come.

You can throw Greece into that equation, too.

Bulgaria is leaning on its neighbor for defense,   after all.

Cooperation between these nations and  Ukraine is at an all-time high.

Defenses are being   set up, and the ringing alarm bells set off by  the shadow war are being heeded.

Eastern Europe   is joining Ukraine.

And it’s letting Putin know  that the shadow war he’s waging isn’t intimidating   them.

They’re getting ready for a fight and,  working alongside Ukraine, they’re ready to crush   Russia’s leader and his ambitions of empire.

Of course, this all assumes that Russia will   even have an army left to transform its shadow war  into a conventional one.

That is far from a given,   as tens of thousands of Putin’s soldiers are  being torn up in Ukraine.

Something is wiping   out Russian troops like never before in Ukraine,  and that spells bad news for a spring offensive   that was supposed to topple a country that shows  no signs of relenting under Russian pressure.