Russia has adopted Chinese tactics to destabilise Britain by attacking computer systems, deep sea cables and spreading disinformation on social media, experts have warned.
A European Union intelligence report said the Kremlin has taken Beijing’s blueprint for attacking Western democracies and ‘perfected’ the approach.
The shocking security assessment said the West is dangerously exposed to a coordinated threat of sabotage attacks, which are then strenuously denied by Russia and China.
These attacks have been stepped up since Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in a bid to undermine support for Kyiv and intimidate the country’s allies.
The EU said: ‘What is innovated by China will be perfected by China’, adding that Western nations ‘need to respond jointly and globally to attacks’.
China’s approach towards Taiwan, including ‘grey-zone’ attacks beneath the threshold for military reprisals, has become Russia’s template towards the UK and Europe.
These tactics include supposedly inadvertent invasions of airspace and domestic waters, arson attacks, cyber-attacks and penetrating deep sea communications infrastructures.
Taiwan has been subjected to this sort of intimidation in recent years. Russia’s interactions with Baltic states appear to have mirrored China’s approach.
As China has severed subsea cables in the Taiwan Strait so Russia has attacked cables in the Baltic Sea.
Dr Sari Havren, from the military thinktank RUSI, told the i newspaper: ‘The tactics are the perfect tools to attack the vulnerabilities of open, democratic and rule of law societies.’
She said Russia and China were working together to weaken Western nations while maintaining ‘plausible deniability’.
Dr Havren added: ‘China and Russia have deepened their cooperation and coordination on all areas, not least security and militarily.’
The report comes after Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte suggested any future Chinese military action against Taiwan would be coordinated with Russia.
China has been accused of supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, though this has stopped short of direct military assistance.