The Effect of the Ukrainian-Russian war on the security situation in Eurasia still continues shaping the security environment according to the long-standing trend of the surge of terrorism when interstate discord grows. The world records indicate that almost all the deaths of terrorism incidents are witnessed in active conflict regions and the future scenario of Eurasia also indicates the same. In the 2014 conflict stage in Ukraine, the nation registered the highest surge in terrorism. The same was the opposite in Russia, as after falling to more than 200 attacks in 2012, the country fell to almost zero by 2021, and only the full-scale invasion reorganized the vulnerabilities in the region.
The new Russian attacks in eastern Ukraine in 2024 and the early 2025 were accompanied by the apparent increase in radicalization pipelines, which were expanded not only to battlefield conditions but also to the peripheral areas. The western domestic intelligence services recorded the rise of such lone-actor attacks, which are increasing with 32 in 2024 to 52 in early 2025 as the online extremist ecosystems capitalize on war-related narratives and teach-backs. This spillover is very graphic because of the revival of ISKP. The Crocus City Hall attack in March 2024, which claimed the lives of close to 150 individuals, was both an evolution of capabilities and showed their ability to reach all corners, which countered Moscow post 2010 counter-terrorism operations.
Escalating Threat Patterns Around Conflict Zones
The nearness to the war is becoming a determinant in the trend of terrorism in Eurasia. Other states outside the warring region, especially Georgia, Moldova, and certain regions of Central Asia, are at increased risk, because of the flows of mobility, smuggling networks, and recruitment systems. The 2025 intelligence testing suggests that foreign war veterans, ex- enemy combatants, and assimilated migrants have been the initiators of fresh attack planning frameworks. The Effect of Ukraine-Russia War is therefore much more than simple front line effects, revitalizing the inactive extremist cells and instilling the motives of hybrid warfare into non-state networks.
Evolving Radicalization Channels
The connotations of digitized ecosystems that are tied to the war have increased the ideological drift. The more intricate recruitment environment is increasingly being played off the war imagery by pro-Ukrainian actors, pro-Russian actors, and jihadist actors in an attempt to rationalize violence. The fact that the production of propaganda has become decentralized since the end of the year 2023 makes it even harder to track and intervene, increasing the risks of spillover.
Russian Covert Operations And Shadow War Expansion
One of the typical features of the 2025 regional instability is the increased covert actions promoted by Russia in Europe. The number of Russian sabotage incidents increased threefold in 2024 to 34 reported incidents, which is a significant sharp rise with the number being three incidents in 2022. These operations are always associated with GRU Unit 29155, which specialized in the use of explosives, disruption of maritime and cyber assaults. About 35 percent of the recorded operations involved the use of explosive devices and 27 percent were based on anchor or controlled collisions in damaging undersea infrastructure. The other attacks involve cyber attack, which is mostly in the energy, logistics, and defense systems.
Critical infrastructure represents a primary target category. Transport hubs and government facilities each account for 27% of the documented incidents, with another 21% directed at defense-industrial networks. Russia’s shadow fleet responsible for circumventing sanctions and transferring oil has increasingly participated in cable drag operations across the Baltic Sea. Nearly 70% of these vessels are implicated in disruptions affecting telecommunications or energy connections, prompting European Union investigations and NATO maritime surveillance responses.
Target Selection And Geopolitical Messaging
Sabotage patterns reflect deliberate geopolitical signaling. Most attacks concentrate on states directly supporting Ukraine militarily, such as Poland, Germany, Estonia, and Finland. Intelligence officials note a conspicuous absence of incidents in pro-Russia jurisdictions, including Hungary. MI6 chief Richard Moore described GRU activities as “staggeringly reckless,” warning that the objective appears to be fear-based deterrence aimed at weakening Western support for Ukraine.
Hybrid Sabotage And Security Fragmentation
Russia’s covert operations highlight blurred boundaries between classical espionage, terrorism-adjacent sabotage, and hybrid military pressure. As cable disruptions increase and cyber operations penetrate deeper into energy networks, European security actors grapple with attribution challenges that delay coordinated responses.
Central Asian And Caucasus Vulnerabilities
Central Asian and South Caucasus states confront renewed exposure linked to Russia’s shifting military priorities. The Impact of Ukraine-Russia War has redirected Russian security resources, creating gaps across its southern flank. These vacuums enable extremist mobility and cross-border flows extending from northern Afghanistan. ISKP and Al-Qaeda affiliates increasingly exploit these openings, with 2025 witnessing attempted attacks in Turkiye and intensified operations in the North Caucasus.
Structural Weaknesses In Regional Security
Russia’s diminished presence affects longstanding counter-terrorism routines historically embedded through post-Soviet institutions. Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan regularly report pressure along border zones, where returning fighters and transnational networks intersect. Afghanistan’s Taliban government, struggling to control northern provinces, inadvertently enables militant transfers into Eurasia through porous mountain routes.
NATO Assessments And Regional Adaptations
NATO’s 2024 Washington Summit reclassified terrorism and Russian hybrid attacks as parallel asymmetric threats. The 2025 follow-up assessments highlight increased alarm over ISKP’s operational reach, particularly its ability to stage attacks beyond Afghanistan. Regional early warning systems supported by UNRCCA and the EU now prioritize intelligence fusion, acknowledging the dynamic nature of threat spillover.
Ukrainian Asymmetric Tactics And Cross-Border Blowback
Ukraine’s evolving asymmetric warfare approach also shapes the broader security equation. The 2025 “Spider’s Web” operation marked a significant technological shift, enabling Ukrainian forces to destroy over 40 Russian aircraft using covert drone systems integrated into civilian cargo shipments. This tactic demonstrates the rising potential for non-state actors to replicate innovative battlefield techniques.
Technology Diffusion And Terrorist Adaptation
Non-state groups across Eurasia closely track Ukrainian tactics. Security agencies warn that drone-munitions integration, improvised guidance systems, and low-visibility logistics chains are increasingly accessible to extremist cells. While Ukraine conducts these operations within the constraints of international law, the broader diffusion of knowledge—through open-source channels or captured components—poses future risks.
Proxy Dynamics And Escalation Uncertainty
Russian reliance on criminal networks and private military surrogates to retaliate introduces instability. These proxies operate with limited oversight, complicating risk modelling and escalating miscalculation probabilities.
Hybrid Warfare Convergence And Attribution Dilemmas
Hybrid warfare networks have expanded since the full-scale invasion, blending cyber operations, underground sabotage, and targeted propaganda. The Impact of Ukraine-Russia War accelerates this amalgamation. Russian-linked cyberattacks quadrupled in the months leading to the invasion, and 2025 metrics show continued pressure on Ukrainian telecommunications, logistics databases, and power infrastructure. Spillover affects neighboring NATO members, prompting enhanced cyber-resilience programs and cross-border forensics.
In the Baltic Sea, cable severings attributed to Russian shadow fleet activity mirror similar tactics employed by Chinese vessels near Taiwan’s maritime zones. Analysts note that this convergence indicates a broader international learning cycle among major powers, complicating the boundaries between state and non-state threat environments.
Policy Adjustments And Regional Security Gaps
NATO, EU and governments in Eurasia are still working on adjusting their structures to suit the changing scope of threats. Even as the Western approach focuses on defensive resilience, which includes sanctions, intelligence fusion, and the protection of infrastructure, analysts have noted a lack of an obvious offensive deterring factor that would focus on the networks that engage in sabotage. The NATO 2025 documents combine terrorism and hybrid threats under one umbrella of operational threats and show that the contemporary conflict is related.
Eurasian states need more serious investments in early warning and border control, especially when it comes to militant infiltration threats. Regional early warning systems by UNRCCA are highly helpful, but loopholes still exist in border regions that have limited resources.
The Effect of Ukraine-Russia War eventually transforms Eurasia by combining the spillover of terrorism with covert state action to provide a flexible threat environment in which hybrid operations double exponentially. With 2025 approaching, the issue of state sabotage, non-state opportunism, and technological adaptation is an urgent concern to the policymakers: will the continuously changing security structures be able to match the innovations powered by conflict, or will the region experience the rise of more and more unforeseen waves across interconnected lines?
