Flights frozen across Europe in suspected Russian cyber strike

In September 2025, several European airports suffered cyberattacks impacting the check-in system. These included London Heathrow, Dublin, Berlin Brandenburg, and Brussels. This caused thousands of travellers to be delayed or to miss their flights. Several flights were delayed, others were cancelled, and some were rerouted.

The governments of several countries have expressed their suspicion that Russia committed these crimes. Russia has a long history of cyberattacks on Ukraine, Balkan countries, the USA, and other nations. Russia cyberhacked US airports in 2023 and 2024.

As US diplomatic cables leaked in 2010 said, Russia is a mafia state. The state has a symbiosis with criminal syndicates. Some crime families are tolerated in return for committing crimes abroad in furtherance of Russian foreign policy goals. Cybercriminals are particularly favoured. They often commit financial crimes.

The airport hacking has backfired in some ways for Russia. Western airports are analysing how Russia managed to do this. They are raising their defences. In the event of war, they will be better prepared.

Russia has frequently interfered with the global positioning systems of planes near its airspace. Why does Russia like this means of grey zone warfare? Planes are expensive and vulnerable. Even one crash could cause hundreds of deaths and would be reported as a major news item. It would scare people off flying and cause economic loss as there would be fewer tourists. Russia has noticed how terrorist downings of planes always caused panic far more than ground attacks, even if the ground attacks kill more people.

Thus far, Russia has not caused any planes to crash. It has not been intended to, but it may be a matter of time before this sort of hacking causes a crash. If they really wanted to bring down a plane, they could shoot it down, but Russia wants plausible deniability.

In 2014, Russian terrorists in East Ukraine shot down a Malaysia Airlines flight, killing 300 people. Russia has lied and lied and lied about this despite proof positive of which individuals shot it down, from where, and with which weapon. Russia had shot down two Ukrainian planes the day before. There were no Russian planes flying over East Ukraine, so there was no reason for Ukraine to fire at any plane. Russia is subtly reminding the West with these grey zone warfare attacks on civil aviation that it could bring down planes if it wanted to.

Another reason for Russia committing grey zone attacks on civil aviation is vengeance for the decimation of its own civil aviation. Since Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022, about 37 countries have banned airlines from Russia and Belarus from their airspace. Russia lost lots of lucrative routes.

It cannot legally buy spare parts for Western-made planes or have them serviced. It has been able to buy spare parts illegally through third countries that are willing to break sanctions. Aeroflot, S7, Ural Airlines, Pobeda, and Red Wings have kept flying through cannibalising their older planes for spares. They can fly to fewer destinations, and these are closer, so this has extended the service life of their aircraft. They are increasingly breaking their own safety regulations. It is a miracle that there has not been a major air disaster.

The 2016 election was hacked by Russians, and the CIA was able to provide chapter and verse on the pro-state Russian hackers who did this. When Putin gave an interview to an American journalist who cited details about the Russian hackers, Putin responded by pretending to laugh. Putin is notorious for having no sense of humour. His affected laughing was his only defence when he had been caught red-handed. He later said that maybe Russian patriots had done so. Fancy Bear is the Russian group that did this. The Internet Research Agency is another.

Russia likes to do denial-of-service attacks. It closed down a pipeline in the USA several years ago.

It is very difficult to defend against cyberattacks. What is feasible is to counterattack. This would mean hacking Russia: government websites, banks, the military, oil production, and gas production. Almost every organisation relies on computers. Hackers could even broadcast anti-war messages on Russian TV.

Western countries are pusillanimous, and Putin knows it. They are loath to hit back for fear of provoking an escalation. But without retaliation, Putin will escalate anyway. He has calculated that it is cost-free.

It will take time to prove conclusively that Russia was behind the cyberattacks. Even then, it is hard to prove it 100%. Even if things are proven irrefragably, Moscow shall deny, deny, deny, even when it looks absolutely idiotic to do so. There are enough useful simpletons who will fall for Moscow’s lies.

Every government lies, but the Russian Government is off the charts for lying. Most people try to lie as little as possible. They tell lies close to the truth to make them believable. They only tell lies that they think they can get away with. But the Russian Government routinely tells the most flagrant whoppers. Here are some of them. There is no war in Ukraine. Russia did not invade Ukraine. There is no conflict in Ukraine. To use any of those words — ‘war’, ‘conflict’, ‘invasion’ — about Ukraine is a crime in Russia.

The massive Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s border in 2022 was not a threat to anyone. There was no famine or genocide in Ukraine in 2022. The USSR did not murder 20,000 Polish prisoners of war in 1940. Russia has free elections. Russia has free speech. Sanctions do not harm Russia despite Russia’s counter-sanctions and demands that sanctions be lifted in return for a ceasefire.

Russia has never targeted civilians. Russia never tortures anyone. Muslims who oppose him are terrorists. The Bucha Massacre in 2022 was not committed by Russia. Ukraine is not a nation. There were no Russian soldiers in Ukraine from 2014 to 2022. When Russian-speaking men in Russian Army uniform arrived from Russia with Russian Army-issued weapons, they were not Russian.

Days after telling these lies, Moscow bragged that these men were Russian soldiers.

Kim Philby was an MI6 (British foreign intelligence service) officer who was a double agent for the Soviets in the 1940s and 1950s. He later moved to the USSR. He gave a speech to the East German communist secret police. Philby advised them to train agents, if caught in the West, ‘Never confess. Even if they show you an incriminating document in your own handwriting, never confess: it’s a forgery. They play you a recording of your own voice saying something incriminating: it has been selectively edited. They show you photos of you doing something illegal: it is a hoax.’ That is the way Putin operates. He was in the KGB (Soviet secret service) that had Philby as an agent.