Moscow wants to ruin your weekend

When is slower internet better than none at all? When are travel delays more serious a political challenge than threats of nuclear war? These questions acquired particular significance with the news that Stockholm’s Arlanda airport was temporarily closed this week when several drones intruded into its airspace. Investigations are still in progress, but the police are suggesting this was deliberate sabotage and suspicion is already falling on Moscow. It has highlighted what is likely to be a central element of Russia’s emerging political warfare against the West: a strategy of inconveniences.

The FBI has been accusing Moscow of a systemic effort to tilt the US elections towards Donald Trump, but in Europe, Russia’s intelligence agencies – which Sir Richard Moore, head of MI6, recently described as having ‘gone a bit feral’ – have been involved in rather more direct measures, from assassinating a defector in Spain, to arson attacks in the UK and Poland, to suspected tampering with train lines.