The aggression of Russia affects not only Ukraine and its closest neighbors, but also 28 countries of the European Union, but there is no unity in the EU in assessing the threat emanating from the Kremlin.

On April 24, the analytical center "European Values" released a new major study that examines how individual member states of the European Union perceive a threat emanating from the Russian Federation. More than 450 political documents, intelligence reports and other sources were used to assess how Russia's aggressive behavior affects foreign and security policies in 28 EU countries, from Estonia to Portugal.

The Russian aggression against Ukraine led to sanctions against Russia, while at the same time the Kremlin's aggressive policy threatening military power to specific EU countries and using such instruments of hostile influence as disinformation and support for European extremists and radical leaders pushed many European states. The study of these actions since 2014 showed that:.

13 EU countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Great Britain, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, France, Italy and Denmark) are extremely concerned about the Russian threat of disinformation and participate in at least one of three related projects called To oppose operations on misinformation related to Russia.

However, a group of EU countries, clearly concerned about Russian aggression, lacks a leader. The United Kingdom is already on the way to exit, Germany still does not want to openly oppose Russia, and Poland is deprived of the opportunity to become the legitimate leader of this package because of the unconstructive behavior of its government.

Most strongly, the position of the Kremlin is supported by Italy, which expressed its point of view, for example, by openly vetoing the expansion of sanctions for Russia-sponsored atrocities in Syria. The leader can change after the presidential elections in France, if Moscow gets there an influential ally.

The turning point in this situation will be the formation of the next government coalition of Germany, which can switch European efforts to counter and mitigate Russian aggression in one of two ways. It can either pacify the Kremlin and actually kill sanctions, or continue the principled position of Chancellor Angela Merkel in developing a government policy that responds to the Kremlin's aggression at all levels - from Ukraine to threats of disinformation - and to become the main defender of the liberal international order.

Perception of Threats EU member states consider three main categories of aggressive steps taken by the Russian Federation. The first of them is the Russian military aggression, the war against Ukraine, launched in 2014, and against Georgia in 2008. The Russian invasion of the territory of Ukraine certainly has the greatest impact on how the specialized European institutions see the sphere of security.

The second category covers Russia's attempts to intimidate or threaten military forces with EU member states. These threats are very visible in the Baltic States, as well as in Denmark, Finland and Sweden.

The third category includes Russia's efforts and actions to break the European consensus on political initiatives, such as sanctions, and to support pro-Kremlin political leaders through hostile actions and disinformation. This threat is becoming increasingly important in countries that do not feel an immediate military threat, for example in Germany.

In most Eastern European and Scandinavian countries, the perception of threats from Russia is generally common to the national security organs and the majority of the political class. However, in the western and southern countries of Europe there are often disagreements between national security experts and the majority of the political class, which sometimes takes a pacified or naive attitude towards the actions of the Kremlin. For example, the French and Italian military participate in NATO's work StratCom COE (NATO Strategic Communications Center, a multinational military organization accredited by the Alliance, but not part of NATO command and not subordinate to any of its other organizations. - "GORDON"), despite the fact that their political leadership is very hesitant about the problem.

When examining public annual reports of European intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, two tendencies are evident.

First, many European intelligence services tend to openly express warnings against Russia's behavior, mainly against hostile interference in their internal affairs (for example, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic). Some European intelligence leaders even issued a warning about these threats - publicly and under the record, which is not typical for them.

Secondly, the Kremlin's behavior is described as worsening the situation both inside Russia and among its Eastern European neighbors (not only in Ukraine, but also in Belarus and Moldova), as well as among EU member states.

Recommendations This article is based on a study that is available by reference.