NATO Expert Siewiera Warns: Russia Plans Escalation This Winter

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Warsaw/Berlin. Jacek Siewiera is one of the voices attentively heard in Poland, but also in Berlin and Brussels. The former head of the National Security Bureau in Warsaw tells Focus: NATO must prepare for an approaching confrontation with Russia – and expects a significant escalation of hybrid warfare this winter.

What sounds like military jargon has tangible consequences for your everyday life: sabotage on railway lines, cyberattacks on energy suppliers, disinformation campaigns, provocations at alliance borders. Precisely in this area below the threshold of war, security experts see the greatest danger – and Siewiera is not the only one raising the alarm.

What Siewiera specifically fears

Siewiera, who led Poland's National Security Agency from 2022 to 2023, looks with concern at the coming months, according to Focus. His argument: winter means a window of opportunity for Russia with darkness, energy shortages, and political uncertainty – ideal conditions to put NATO under pressure with hybrid means, without risking an open war.

Under hybrid warfare, experts group together a broad spectrum: cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, acts of sabotage, orchestrated disinformation, the smuggling of migrants as a means of pressure, targeted provocations at external borders. All of this happens below the threshold of armed conflict, but aims to destabilize societies and test the responsiveness of an alliance.

Other experts see similar risks – with nuances

Siewiera is not alone in his assessment. Military expert David Sharp warns, according to a Merkur report, of an uncontrolled escalation between Russia and NATO that could become the main risk of war. Military expert Gustav Gressel considers a Russian attack on a NATO country, according to ZDFheute, even "quite possible" – as a test of how the alliance reacts.

Terrorism expert Peter R. Neumann boils it down to a formula in the Tagesspiegel: Putin wants to use hybrid warfare to probe how the alliance responds to provocations. Bundeswehr expert Carlo Masala and retired Colonel Ralph Thiele make similar statements in comparable interviews. And military expert Reisner sees in the current attacks, according to Merkur, only the foretaste of what he calls the "decisive battlefield" between Russia and NATO.

Agreement in the warning – dispute over the timeline

As far as the diagnosis is concerned, the experts are largely in agreement: Russia is pursuing an active hybrid strategy against the West, and NATO is inadequately prepared for it. On the timeline, however, opinions diverge. While Siewiera and Gressel consider a concrete Russian test in the coming months realistic, others – such as the Tagesspiegel reporting – classify Putin's approach more as a long-term strategy.

According to MSN, NATO experts consider Europe in any case incapable of sustaining a war of attrition against Russia: the population is not prepared for a prolonged military conflict. This makes the Siewiera warning part of a broader debate about war readiness, military service, and industrial arms production in Europe.

What this means for you

The warnings remain abstract as long as nothing happens. But if they prove correct, the consequences would be concrete: rising energy and insurance prices after cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, more disinformation on social media before elections, possible mobilizations on NATO's eastern flank. According to the experts' assessment, particularly exposed are Poland, the Baltic states, and Finland – but also Germany as a logistical hub for Ukraine aid.

Siewiera's message to NATO is clear: rearm faster, improve responsiveness to hybrid attacks, and treat sabotage, cyberattacks, and disinformation as what they are – strategic harbingers of a possible confrontation.

Status of research: The warning is based on the Focus report and current assessments from European military experts. How far Russia will actually go remains open – and is precisely the gray zone that so concerns Siewiera.