BRUSSELS—The expulsion of 42 Russian diplomats from 18 European Union capitals this week sent a potent signal of Europe’s anger over the poisoning in the U.K. of a former Russian spy. But effective action to blunt Moscow’s espionage, political interference and other covert actions remain modest.
Since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has toughened their military readiness. But Europe’s response to nonmilitary pressure has been weaker as governments disagree over where the biggest threats lie and when provocations are serious enough to require a response.
At a summit last week, EU leaders ordered officials to find new measures by June to increase the bloc’s resilience to Russian-based threats.
On Tuesday, NATO announced it was revoking accreditation of seven diplomats and rejecting the application of three new ones as part of a policy that will now restrict the Russian mission to a maximum of 20.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg framed the retaliation as going beyond a reaction to the poisoning, saying the expulsions were part of “a broader response” of allies to “reckless behavior by Russia.”
“Russia has underestimated the unity of NATO allies,” Mr. Stoltenberg said.
Moscow-backed interventions vary widely, European officials say, citing cyberattacks, espionage and election meddling in the U.S. and elsewhere. But all are designed to raise questions about the origin or responsibility in order to minimize a Western response, they say.
There are many examples. French President Emmanuel Macron has accused Moscow of interfering in domestic elections. In 2015, Russia jailed an Estonian intelligence officer who Tallinn said had been kidnapped from its side of the border.
Earlier this year, suspected Russian hackers posted a false story about Lithuanian Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis to a TV channel’s website, then sent messages to officials including a link to the fake story along with malicious code designed to infiltrate government computers.
“It started as fake news, but in fact it was a cyberattack, an attempt to spread a virus meant to take over key systems,” Mr. Karoblis said.
Russian officials have denied meddling with other countries.
NATO has begun assessing its members’ resilience but efforts to repel such hybrid threats remain largely national, not multinational. And while Europe is launching defensive measures, Russia appears to have stepped up its attacks, officials say.
Kadri Liik, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that after the 2016 U.S. presidential election many Europeans who had been skeptical of allegations of Russian interference became more convinced of Moscow’s involvement.
“I think European countries have started thinking about it but I think the readiness is very uneven,” she said.
As part of the new EU push, European leaders have pledged to boost efforts for three years yet acknowledge much work remains to be done to blunt cyberattacks and propaganda.
“It is clear that we should reinforce our preparedness for future attacks,” said European Council President Donald Tusk last week. “And we need to increase our resilience to hybrid threats, such as undermining trust in our democracies through fake news or election-meddling.”
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May told British lawmakers on Monday that the collective expulsions being announced around the world were the largest ever against Russian intelligence officers.
But curbing intelligence work by kicking out diplomats suspected of espionage is notoriously difficult. Russia has one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated intelligence services.
In 2015, NATO reduced the Russian mission from 60 to 30 people in part to curb intelligence-gathering. Russian officials said such efforts didn’t impact intelligence gathering but did complicate life for their diplomats.
While NATO officials wouldn’t say whether the 10 individuals targeted Tuesday were intelligence agents, specific individuals were targeted rather than letting Moscow choose which officials would return to Russia.
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