Russia’s intelligence services are now seeking to damage European infrastructure with cyber attacks rather than merely overwhelm websites with excess traffic, Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said.
“Over the past year, Russia’s methods have shifted,” Bohlin said during a news conference in Stockholm on Wednesday. “Pro-Russian groups that once carried out denial-of-service attacks are now attempting destructive cyber attacks against organizations in Europe.”
Bohlin’s statement underscores European officials’ growing concern about the vulnerability of critical systems including power plants and water treatment works to disruption by Russian operatives.
Poland fought off a wave of cyber attacks by Russian intelligence agencies in December 2025 targeting two power plants and renewable energy facilities, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said earlier this year. Like Poland, the Nordic states are staunch supporters of Kyiv making them potential targets of aggression by Russia, which is waging full-scale war against Ukraine.
Bohlin said “a heating plant in Western Sweden” had been targeted by a group with links to Russian intelligence in spring 2025. The attack had been thwarted by security systems at the plant, Bohlin said, declining to provide further details.
Norway and Denmark had seen similar attempts, he said.
“Taken together, this points to a change toward riskier and more reckless behavior which could potentially lead to damaging effects for society,” the minister said.
Photograph: Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin; photo credit: Pontus Lundahl/AFP/Getty Images
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