🇪🇺🇷🇺 - Over the past 10 days, public officials across Europe have shared that new data hints at an increased risk of the Russo-Ukrainian war degenerating into a European War. Those comments were initially made by governments or country leaders before being backed by statements from intelligence agencies from France, the Baltic nations, Scandinavian nations, Germany and NATO.

The national agencies seem to have different stances on when the hybrid warfare conducted by Russia will escalate but they all agree it will happen. The estimated time frames of the escalation range from several weeks to several months, to 2031.

Fears of a Russian invasion have also sparked international debates on whether this is feasible or not. So far, agencies have mostly shared insights on hybrid warfare and barely speculated on a ground invasion.

Rerum Novarum estimates those reports to be founded on verified data. The hybrid warfare waged by Russia has already picked up the pace in the past weeks, and seemingly accelerated even more this month.

Ground invasions remain, for now, out of the equation. The most explosive action on the ground that Rerum Novarum anticipates is a possible takeover of the Suwalki Gap to link the Kaliningrad enclave to Belarus, or a hostile takeover of Narva in Estonia. Prior to such events, or larger ones, the international community would see obvious buildups from satellite imagery near points of tension. This is not the case for now. However, news outlets did indicate that hospitals were being prepared for wartime measures in St. Petersburg, Germany and France alongside new efforts from Baltic countries to prepare mass evacuations.

Russia seems to have serious plans to test NATO's will to invoke Article 5 alongside European unity. Fully escalating the war in Ukraine to the rest of Europe is neither in their interest nor in their capacity. However, using European (and NATO) internal struggles to further sap the unity of the West seems like an achievable goal for Moscow.