As NATO allies accuse Russia of waging hybrid warfare, the United States joins war exercises in Sweden focused on disrupting sabotage.

Stockholm — A growing number of Mysterious drone sightings near airports and military bases. has fueled concern in Europe over alleged Russian incursions into NATO airspace, and some of the United States’ allies already say the continent is in a gray zone between peace and war, accusing Moscow of escalating “hybrid warfare.”

NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is arguably America’s most important alliance and has lasted more than 75 years. In Sweden, News themezone saw that alliance in action this week, in waters disputed by Russia.

Our team watched as an enemy submarine prepared for a covert espionage and sabotage mission in the Baltic Sea against America’s NATO allies in northern Europe.

It was simply a military exercise, launched from the port of Stockholm, and a German submarine played the role of the anonymous enemy pursued by NATO forces in the Baltic Sea.

American forces participated, flying over the site in spy planes.

“NATO is a defensive alliance,” Commander Arlo Abrahamson, a U.S. Navy officer and spokesman for NATO’s maritime headquarters, who has been closely monitoring Russia’s military buildup in the Baltics, told News themezone. “Potential threats from adversaries in this region are interconnected throughout the world.”

Abrahamson said that if northern Europe is drawn into conflict, it would also have a negative impact on the United States.

Several of the United States’ NATO allies share the Baltic coast with Russia. In recent years, Russia is suspected of carrying out multiple acts of sabotage – including damage to undersea data cables that are the backbone of the global Internet.

Some believe Russia is using the Baltic Sea as a testing ground, to see how much damage it could do to the West’s economy if it ever went to war with NATO. Underwater cables carry trillions of dollars worth of financial transactions every day.

The country leading this week’s exercises, Sweden, gave News themezone rare access to one of its stealth warships, the HMS Helsingborg, as it searched for the pseudo-enemy submarine.

For more than 200 years, Sweden maintained a policy of military non-alignment, but last year, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it became the newest member of NATO.

“We face the Russians every day, sharing the same duck pond, so to speak,” submarine flotilla commander Paula Wallenburg of the Swedish navy told News themezone.

Echoed recent statements by Lithuanian officials accusation that Russia is engaged in some kind of hybrid war with the alleged violations of airspace and acts of sabotage.

“We are not at peace, but we are not at war either,” he said. “We’re somewhere in between.”

Wallenburg agreed that current circumstances seem “pretty close” to those seen during the Cold War, when the nuclear-armed United States and the then-Soviet Union tested each other’s resolve in a high-stakes confrontation that never escalated into a full-scale war.

“It’s a very serious situation as far as security is concerned here in this area,” he said.

In fact, the Kremlin has already said that Russia is at war with NATO over the alliance’s support for Ukraine.

America’s NATO allies in the Baltic Sea area, including Sweden, Finland, Poland and Germany, have decided to significantly increase their domestic military spending and strengthen their defenses.