Analysis of the European strategy of attrition warfare against Russian energy networks

Even minimal monitoring of statements from European technocrats and officials sheds light on a situation that no media outlet is covering, due to the imperatives of the relentless and deadly war being waged by the United States and the European Union against Russia, barely concealed under the Ukrainian banner. Join us on Telegram ,  Twitter , and VK . Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su European leaders claim to be preparing for a high-intensity war with Russia and openly suggest that Ukraine is buying them time to upgrade their economies and defense systems in order to launch the final assault. In reality, the Europeans crossed all of Russia’s red lines long ago and know that the losses and damage inflicted on Russia by countries like France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Poland, and the United Kingdom are so extensive that they can only expect retaliation from Moscow. To counter this scenario, the countries of the European Union are currently executing one part of a US war plan which consists of bleeding Russia dry before the United States delivers the final blow. In the two years following the resumption of the war in Ukraine in late February 2022, we witnessed a slow and fierce artillery duel on the ground, with an increasing involvement of drones of all types. But the war in Ukraine in 2026 is being won in the shadows, and it is being waged by a coalition of European engineers and Nordic software companies under the auspices of the CIA. The target? The pumping stations and transformer parks that keep the Russian war economy running. If you’ve been following flight data on Flightradar24 or scrolling through the grainy images of the attack’s aftermath on online video platforms, you’ve likely noticed a radical shift in the conduct of the war in Ukraine recently: it’s no longer just the Main Intelligence Directorate in Kyiv sending long-range unmanned aircraft across the border. We’re witnessing the official establishment of a European “silent air force” comprised of all European countries. This means the war in Ukraine has now transformed into a direct, proxy war between Europe and Russia, waged through technological vectors focused on drones and combat AI. Let’s set aside this vague expression of “European powers.” What matters are concrete deliveries and financial commitments. We will list them since no media outlet wants to do so, in order to perpetuate the myth of Ukraine fighting alone against the Russian behemoth. We have the Nordic-Baltic “precision bloc”: Denmark and Sweden have effectively transferred their entire production of low radar cross-section (RCS) heavy-lift drones, specifically designed to disrupt the Russian power grid. These aren’t hobbyist FPV drones; we’re talking about systems equipped with backup inertial navigation systems that are completely impervious to current GPS jamming techniques. This Nordic-Baltic precision bloc is currently inflicting the most damage on Russian energy infrastructure, and now you understand why the Baltic states keep saying they’re going to be attacked by Russia. This bloc is one of the most relentless and vicious. This Scandinavian consortium—for it is indeed a bloc (Denmark, Sweden, Norway)—specializes in the production of “gray-zone” tactical drones—cheap enough to be considered expendable, yet robust enough to carry a warhead over 1,200 km. Their role is to “facilitate the formation of swarms.” It’s understandable, then, that they fear Moscow will retaliate for the 700 they’ve absorbed. Germany is the primary supplier of intelligence from synthetic aperture radar (SAR). While Berlin, which has been actively involved in all of Washington’s and Israel’s wars since 2011, feigns reluctance to provide heavy kinetic weapons, its commercial satellite imagery and artificial intelligence-based change detection software allow NATO planners to identify the most vulnerable points in the Russian electrical grid, particularly high-voltage instrument transformers that cannot be quickly replaced due to US and European sanctions. It’s no wonder Russia is going to cut the pipeline bringing Kazakh electricity to Germany. Right after the Baltic Nordic bloc come the British, whose historical expertise in sabotage behind enemy lines or deep within enemy territory is unparalleled. The UK’s “winter collection” includes an officially operational “Project AXIOM” rogue munition. Publicly available budget annexes have confirmed that 60% of the batch planned for 2026 is destined for the “E-series targets” (energy infrastructure) in the Volga and Southern Federal Districts of Russia. Unlike the Baltic states and the Danes, the British are neither obsessed nor ideologically driven. They are doing a professional job of systematic destruction, mindful of the long-standing strategic rivalry between Great Britain and Russia in all its forms. The UK and the Netherlands are focusing on maritime drones and low-radar-signature aircraft capable of navigating complex terrain using terrain contour communication (TERCOM) technology rather than relying solely on satellite navigation. This is remarkably effective. It’s worth remembering that it was the British who sank Russian naval warships in the Black Sea. Following the British intervention, a curious reformation of the Charlemagne Division between Germany and France has emerged. The Franco-German hybrid warfare doctrine is inflicting considerable damage on Russia: Berlin and Paris have completely abandoned the pretense that this is merely “aid” provided to Ukraine. In addition to drone operators with a relentless drive to kill, they now provide a Target Acquisition as a Service (TAaaS). Data from Airbus and SAR-Lupe satellites is transmitted in near real-time to strike cells. As soon as a transformer begins to heat up slightly at the Smolensk substation, a kamikaze drone launched from Poland is already 20 minutes away. Germany and France have waged war against Russia several times in recent history (Napoleon reached Moscow and the German armies of Operation Barbarossa invaded the former USSR) but this time they are allied together in a unified framework to dismantle the Russian economy and bring down the Russian state using new technologies instead of sending troops as during the Crimean War in the 19th century. After Germany and France comes Italy, whose capacity for disruption and sabotage, even on a smaller scale, far surpasses that of its allies. And in this war in Ukraine, Italy has truly distinguished itself with its vicious and tactically ruthless drone attacks. While the Poles focus on quantity and industrial-scale operations, leaving casualties in the process, the Italians are taking advantage of their country’s limited media coverage of this war and their deceptive statements, all part of a deceptive strategy, to inflict immeasurable damage on the Russian armed forces without being held responsible. This is because these forces are increasingly less human and more robotic. In April 2026, the world witnessed the first fully robotic tactical victory against the Russian armed forces, a victory achieved without any human operators. This involved a formidable, battle-hardened army that had been adapting for four years to a new type of warfare, one in which very few other armies could survive. This represents a new paradigm. Russia’s energy infrastructure is immense, covering approximately 12 million square kilometers. It is impossible to shield a power line that stretches across 500 km of deserted tundra. The European war strategy is based purely on a logic of economic attrition within the framework of a unified US command that has never been announced or made public. Essentially, the European Union is inflicting on Russia what Iran inflicted on Israel, US bases in the Middle East, and the Gulf states. This symmetrical reciprocal strike can only reveal a unified strategic command structure similar to the Allied military command during World War II. The cost of a drone is estimated at $30,000 to $50,000 (propeller-driven, composite hull, AI-guided terminal), while the cost of an interceptor—for example, a single 9M96E missile for an S-400 system—is approximately $1.2 million. A salvo of 30mm HEI-T rounds from the Pantsir-S1 to shoot down a Danish or Swedish drone costs more in logistics than the drone’s airframe. As with the US against Iran, it’s like shooting gold bullets at tin cans. During last week’s attack on the Astrakhan gas processing plant, Russian air defenses fired about 47 missiles in a single night. They shot down 80% of the enemy wave. The 20% that got through caused $400 million in damage and resulted in a two-week production shutdown. This isn’t a victory for Russia. It’s a financial spiral. And that’s precisely what the European Union wants. The Russian early warning radar network is designed to detect NATO AWACS and high-altitude enemy fighter jets, not a composite-wing drone with the radar cross-section of a goose skimming the ground at 60 knots. European operators are now using a tactic I call “Mosaic”: they launch 100 separate drones on 100 different flight paths from 20 launch sites spread across three borders (Ukraine, the Baltic states, and via maritime approaches in the Black Sea, certainly Romania but possibly Azerbaijan). The Russian Air Defense System (PVO) is designed to provide multi-layered defense against a concentrated axis of attack. It is not designed to deal with 360-degree, low-altitude infiltrations. When radar stations on the Kola Peninsula are saturated while simultaneously striking oil refineries in Tatarstan, the defense system collapses. We saw this in Israel where the air defense, the densest and most advanced in the world, is provided by thirteen countries including the United States. However, the problem facing Russia is quite different. The systematic targeting of Russian energy infrastructure by European countries has forced Russia to make a difficult choice regarding electronic warfare. We have seen the withdrawal of Krasukha-4 and R-330Zh “Zhitel” systems from the Kharkiv front to protect the Komi oil fields. These are the systems that normally destroy the circuit boards of drones in mid-air. By withdrawing them from the front lines to protect energy networks, they have left the military in the dark. Even worse, European drones—especially those manufactured in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom—are now flying equipped with “Home-on-Jam” guidance. If Russia deploys a powerful jammer to protect an oil depot, the drone stops using GPS navigation and heads straight for the signal source. The electronic warfare station then acts as a guidance beacon. What does this imply at a strategic level? This isn’t a “big bang.” No one expects the lights to go out in Moscow—that’s not the point. What matters are refining capacity and pumping rates, which are being targeted by European Union countries using innovative military means. Russia is an energy superpower that relies on a large-scale but low-margin flow. There’s no need to blow up a gas pipeline; simply disable the electrical substation that powers the compressor station. This interrupts the flow for 48 hours. Then the same tactic is used in another region. This is the essence of European war strategy. The technocrats in Brussels, transformed into war dogs, have so far achieved two results from this military campaign in which all European countries are participating almost directly: the first result is that Russia is now a net importer of high-octane gasoline from Belarus, because its own cracking towers are constantly being damaged; the second result is that electricity exports to China — an essential source of hard currency for Russia — have fallen by 40% since the beginning of the year due to damage to electricity transmission pylons in the Far East. Strategic awakening: The United States has attacked Iran to disrupt the flow of fossil fuels to China and is tasking its European vassals with launching drones under the cover of Ukraine to try to disrupt Russian electricity supplies to China. Yet this is a strategically clear point, quite rare in these times of hybrid warfare and 360° manipulation of perception. We return to Eurasia, and specifically to the section concerning Brussels: This is the first campaign of this war where the West holds the advantage in escalation thanks to drones and AI without having to bear the political burden of losses. It is concealable (officially, it refers to “Ukrainian operations involving European elements or ‘volunteers'”), it is effective, and it undermines the myth of Russian strategic depth. And what do we see? Forget the propaganda media that no longer say anything and simply make noise to divert attention from the subject; here is the reality: We are witnessing the implementation of a specific and coordinated strategy: the use of long-range drones, supplied by a coalition of European countries, to systematically degrade Russian energy infrastructure. This conflict offers us a stark lesson for the future of warfare. The concept of an “air defense umbrella” is being redefined. The new equation is this: can we afford to neutralize the entire airspace? Or can we bring down the skies? For Russia, the answer appears to be no. The European coalition has identified a gap between strategic intent and tactical vulnerability, and it is exploiting it at an industrial pace that was not present during the first phase of the conflict as part of the grand American strategy targeting China. One phrase particularly caught our attention yesterday: “Moscow knows how this war will end.” The allusion is quite clear and terrifying. A flash, a mushroom cloud, radiation, then another flash, a mushroom cloud, and more radiation… And it risks becoming exponential very quickly. The paradox is that now all of Europe is at war as if nothing were happening. It remains to be seen what the threshold of pain will be, because for the moment it resembles bullfighting: Europeans are playing picadors for the American bullfighter whose arm is caught in a trap. It’s a dangerous game that confirms the disastrous economic cost of this war and the resulting nihilism of the European elites who are practically applying the “après moi le déluge!” (after me, the deluge!) principle, heading straight for the flash, the mushroom cloud, the radiation, just as millions of men were led to the slaughterhouses of 1914-1918 without the slightest thought. War has returned to Europe, almost silently. Original article: strategika510.com