Leader: A far from normal week in Europe

A passenger plane was escorted by fighter jets to Évreux Air Base in Normandy after a bomb threat. In a normal week, the news would have been exceptional. But the past week has not been normal. More than twenty aircraft were exposed in just a couple of days to threats of the same nature.

A selection of other incidents during the same time span: Food worth millions of kroner had to be thrown away after freezers were hacked in European grocery stores. Refrigerators with donated blood suffered a similar attack. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that an attempted provocation on the border with Russia that required "full mobilization" had been repelled. Säpo warned that the threat of sabotage against Sweden is increasing. The transitional government extended border controls due to the deterioration of the security situation.

Pro-Russian hackers have taken responsibility for the freezing attacks, but we don't know much more than that at the moment – ​​some cases may well be about a 15-year-old acting alone in front of a computer screen. However, we know that over the past year, Russia has greatly increased its hybrid attacks against Europe. In August, a drone with an explosive charge was found near a Ukrainian cargo ship in Leipzig. Germany has singled out Russia as responsible. In other cases, often in digital attacks, the sender and purpose are more unclear.

Creating a sense of insecurity is a goal in itself for the Kremlin. On the one hand, one likes to act with credible deniability. The tactic makes it more difficult for those attacked to act quickly and decisively (especially devastating in the case of the "green men" who suddenly appeared in Crimea in 2014 and prompted the Russian occupation). It also leads to general insecurity. When no one can be held responsible, anyone can be guilty.

An overarching Russian goal is to reduce incentives to help Ukraine's defense, another to weaken Europe by sowing division between allies.

We saw how that can happen when tens of thousands of migrants made their way to Spain's North African exclave of Ceuta this summer. Then several politicians quickly attacked Spain's social democratic government. Italy's Georgia Meloni and SD's Jimmie Åkesson demanded that Spain be excluded from the Schengen cooperation (of which Ceuta is not even part), Denmark's Mette Frederiksen opened up to limit free movement. The moderate ministers Ulf Kristersson and Johan Forssell took the opportunity to warn that the "migration crisis" could arise in Sweden if the opposition were to win the election.

They were poodled when it appeared that Spain was handling the influx well, and that most returned to Morocco quickly. Europol registered over 2,000 fake articles and 6,000 fake messages about Ceuta from Russian actors in the same days. Right-wing politicians in Europe had walked right into the trap and played along in Russia's attempt to drive a wedge into European solidarity.

In this serious situation, politicians must manage to keep a cool head.