"Now there will be tensions." Russia's ruler Vladimir Putin said this week after NATO cleared the way for Finland and Sweden to join.
It's not his first threat.
Since there has been increased discussion about possible NATO membership, especially in Finland, Putin has repeatedly taunted the countries in northern Europe.
At the same time, there have been cyber attacks, hacker attacks and airspace violations in the region in recent years - actions that experts refer to as »hybrid«.
Colonel iG Sönke Marahrens is Director of Strategy and Defense at the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threat.
The international research institute based in Helsinki has been dealing explicitly with hybrid threats since 2017.
It is difficult to grasp hybrid warfare, says Marahrens in the podcast, "because it can sometimes be very subliminal, but then also sometimes, as we saw in Ukraine in 2014 and then from February of this year, also very massive before the Russian regime invaded Ukraine in February, it ramped up cyberattacks for years.
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For Marahrens, Ukraine is an example of a “hybrid war gone awry” because “Russia basically wanted to do the same thing as in Kazakhstan in January: They wanted to get in very quickly, create a regime change and set up their own puppet government.
But the problem quickly arose for the Russians that they had massively underestimated the Ukrainians.
The last seven years, which the Ukraine had in preparation for a real war, seem to have been used wisely there.«
The Hybrid CoE advises states on security strategies.
Marahrens still sees room for improvement for Germany: “If you look at the coalition agreement, you will find indications of a hybrid threat, but this topic is not a separate case.
Investing in resilience is money well spent.«
Listen to the current podcast episode here: