Mark Rutte on Russia’s hybrid attacks: “NATO has all response options”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Monday in Brussels that the Alliance’s member states have all the options they need to counter Russia’s hybrid attacks and that Vladimir Putin will not succeed in dividing them.

The statement comes after Sunday’s strike launched by Russia against a Ukrainian train traveling from Kyiv to Warsaw. A Russian drone hit the locomotive approximately two kilometers from the border with Poland. The train was carrying more than 200 people, but no one was injured after the crew was warned of the threat in time.

Rutte described the attack as evidence that Russia is becoming increasingly “reckless” and that the Russian president is becoming increasingly desperate in the context of the war against Ukraine.

Kyiv denounced the intensification of Russian provocations at the border between Ukraine and NATO and suspects that the train may have been targeted because it was carrying European representatives. Russia’s Ministry of Defense confirmed the attack, claiming that the railway infrastructure was being used to transport weapons from Europe to Ukraine.