The Polish defence minister chose a quiet but significant stage for his warning: the 35th Karpacz Economic Forum, an annual gathering in the mountains of southwestern Poland where politicians, soldiers and experts come to talk about the future of Europe. Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz did not come with dramatic headlines about an imminent invasion. Instead, he offered something more unsettling: a picture of security threats that do not look like the past. In his view, the Russian threat to Europe will be increasingly defined by acts of sabotage, disinformation and airspace violations, not by a replay of the full-scale conventional aggression seen in Ukraine. That may sound like a relief, but it is not. A threat that is smaller in scale can be far harder to see, far easier to deny, and far more corrosive in the way it wears down public confidence. The minister was essentially telling Europeans to stop waiting for a familiar kind of war and start paying attention to the strange, quiet ways in which pressure is being applied to their societies.
Sabotage, the minister explained, is likely to be one of the most common tools. These acts would not be front-page battles, but incidents that disrupt daily life and create uncertainty. He pointed specifically to GPS signal jamming and problems involving cables in the Baltic Sea. These are not abstract risks. GPS interference can affect civilian navigation, airline safety, and even the timing systems that keep banks and mobile networks running. Undersea cables carry the internet between countries; if cables are damaged, entire regions can lose connectivity or face expensive slowdowns. Sabotage could also target railways, ports, power grids, water supplies, and other sensitive infrastructure. The aim is not necessarily to cause catastrophic casualties, but to create chaos, fear, and a feeling that ordinary institutions cannot protect people. That is why the minister’s warning feels so personal. It is one thing to imagine a tank column on the horizon; it is another to think about a stranger tampering with a cable mast or a ship dragging an anchor across an underwater connection. These are actions that can be plausibly denied, blamed on accidents, or covered up. This makes them attractive to adversaries who want to test Europe’s patience without triggering a formal war or a full NATO response.
Airspace violations are another piece of the puzzle. The minister mentioned incidents involving the unauthorized entry of aircraft or drones into national airspace. These are not necessarily armed attacks, but they are deliberate provocations designed to test reactions, waste resources, and put pressure on air defences. Every time an unidentified object enters Polish or other European airspace, interceptors may scramble, radar systems go on alert, and political nerves are strained. Over time, repeated violations can exhaust personnel and create openings for miscalculation. But the deeper danger may be psychological. People begin to feel that their borders are not respected, that their leaders are not fully in control, and that the rules that kept post-war Europe stable no longer matter. The minister’s mention of GPS jamming fits the same pattern. By disrupting satellite navigation over a region, an adversary can create uncertainty among pilots, ship captains, and even drivers. This kind of attack does not require heavy artillery; it can be done with relatively cheap electronic tools from a distance. It is not enough to respond with military force because the attack may leave no clear signature)Skip before.
So what does Poland intend to do about this changing threat? Kosiniak-Kamysz responded with a word that is often heard in security debates but not always fully understood: resilience. For him, resilience is not just about tanks, missiles and soldiers. It is also about strengthening society as a whole, and especially people’s ability to recognise and report suspicious activity. That is a striking and humanising message. It means ordinary citizens are not just passive observers of national defence; they are part of it. The person who notices someone acting oddly near a railway junction, the worker who sees a van lingering around a telecommunications hub, the neighbour who is puzzled by an unfamiliar device attached to a street lamp — all of these people can serve as early warning sensors. But that requires education, trust, and a clear reporting system. People need to know what to look for and who to tellais. They need to feel confident that reporting a suspicion is a civic duty, not an act of paranoia. The minister’s emphasis on strengthening “the population’s ability to recognise and report suspicious activity” is therefore not a slogan. It is an acknowledgement that the first line of defence in a hybrid war is often not a soldier, but a watchful citizen.
At the same time, Kosiniak-Kamysz was careful to calm fears of a direct invasion of Poland on the model of Ukraine. He said that Warsaw does not currently anticipate a Russian aggression against Poland of the same kind as that carried out against Ukraine)Skip. There was, he said, no such build-up of forces comparable to what happened in the months before February 2022. This is an important nuance. In the lead-up to the invasion, satellite images and intelligence reports showed large numbers of troops, tanks, artillery and supply convoys massing near Ukraine’s borders. That kind of preparation is hard to hide)Skip The absence of that large-scale concentration today is one reason Western leaders are not predicting an imminent Russian offensive against Poland or other NATO territory. But the minister’s broader point is that conventional invasion is not the only danger, and possibly not even the most likely one. A country can be attacked and weakened without a single enemy soldier crossing the border. Through sabotage, disinformation, cyberattacks, and the deliberate manipulation of infrastructure, a hostile state can create instability, damage economies, and undermine trust in public institutions. It can do so while maintaining a veneer of plausible deniability, and it can keep the pressure below the threshold that would trigger NATO’s collective defence clause. Poland, the minister stressed, must therefore strengthen its own resilience. This goes beyond having a strong army. It involves preparing institutions, businesses, local communities, and individuals to withstand a steady stream of low-level provocations and hostile influence.
Disinformation, Kosiniak-Kamysz said, is already one of Russia’s main weapons, and he warned that it can cause significant harm to society. This part of the warning is especially relevant in an age when a single fake video can travel across platforms within minutes, long before corrections are published. Disinformation does not need to convince everyone of a falsehood. It only needs to create doubt, confusion, and division. If enough people become unsure about what is true, then democratic debate becomes difficult and social trust begins to crack. The harm can be felt in many ways: people refuse to cooperate with authorities during emergencies, parents fear safe vaccines, voters lose faith in elections, and neighbours begin to see each other as enemies. Russia, the minister implied, does not have to win a military battle to achieve its objectives. It only has to make European societies turn against themselvesable. The response, therefore, is not something that governments can do alone. Ordinary citizens need to learn how to recognize manipulative narratives, check sources, and report suspicious stories or activities. Media literacy becomes a form of civil defence. Community resilience becomes a national security strategy. This is a different kind of defence, but no less important than tanks or fighter jets.
What makes the minister’s message striking is not that it reveals a secret, but that it frames Russia’s likely strategy in such clear terms. For years, experts have been saying that hybrid warfare is the new battlefield. Now a senior Polish official is telling everyone to prepare for a long period of harassment and psychological pressure, not necessarily a large military push. This is not a call to panic; it is a call to adjust expectations. If Europeans expect only classic war, they may miss a slower, more ambiguous attack. If they spend so much time fearfully watching the horizon for tank columns, they may ignore thousands of small acts designed to undermine their confidence. The minister’s two main points are actually simple: Russia is likely to continue using sabotage, lies, and intrusions to destabilise Europe, and the best defence is a society that is aware, prepared, and united. This vision of security is less glamorous than military parades, but it may be more realistic. It demands long-term patience and strong institutions, rather than dramatic responses. It also demands that ordinary citizens take an active role instead of passively waiting for leaders to protect them. In that sense, the minister’s warning is also an invitation: pay attention, ask questions, stay calm, and do not let fear or anger be weaponised.
In the end, the picture painted by Wladysław Kosiniak-Kamysz is not one of inevitable doom, but of a changing nature of conflict. Europe has spent decades organising its defences against the threat of a massive land invasion, especially since the war in Ukraine. That threat has not disappeared, but the immediate danger appears to be more diffuse and more digital. Sabotage on shore, cables cut at sea, airspace intrusions, GPS jamming, and waves of disinformation are easier to dismiss as annoyances, yet they can be deeply damaging over time. The minister’s call for Poland to strengthen its society’s ability to recognise and report suspicious activity is really a call for collective awareness. It suggests that security is not something that can be entirely outsourced to soldiers and police. It is also a communal habit of attention, a willingness to ask questions, and a shared commitment to truth. Europe has spent decades building military alliances, economic integration, and legal institutions. What it needs now, perhaps, is a new kind of readiness: a readiness to see the signs of hybrid pressure early, to talk honestly about them, and to respond with calm patience rather than panic or indifference. The Karpacz forum is usually a place for business talk and regional cooperation, but this year, the Polish defence minister turned it into a reminder that the greatest threat may be one we have not yet learned to see clearly. The danger is not only that Russia might do something aggressive. The danger is that Europeans might fail to recognise the small, strange symptoms of a very modern kind of war until it is already too late.