Russia is actively preparing for a potential conflict with NATO and could be in a position to launch an attack within a year of concluding its war in Ukraine, according to a stark warning from the Netherlands’ military intelligence agency, the MIVD.
The agency’s annual report identifies Russia as the most direct and serious threat facing Europe, describing a Kremlin that is growing in confidence and ambition, bolstered by deepening military and technological ties with China. While the MIVD assesses it as highly unlikely that Russia would open a new front while still engaged in Ukraine, it warns that the post-war window could arrive sooner than many in the West are prepared for.
Vice Admiral Peter Reesink, the MIVD’s director, pointed to the Russia-China relationship as a central concern. Moscow, he said, is benefiting from Chinese exports that sustain its arms industry, while Beijing in turn is drawing on Russia’s battlefield experience in Ukraine to sharpen its own military capabilities. The MIVD also warned that China’s cyber-espionage capabilities have now reached a level comparable to those of the United States. “We are vulnerable and we’re not always capable of seeing all the threats China produces,” Reesink said, describing Beijing’s cyber operations as “very capable” and “organised in a very complex way.”
The warning from the Hague lands alongside an equally serious assessment from Britain’s own National Cyber Security Centre. Speaking at the government’s annual CYBERUK conference in Glasgow, NCSC chief executive Richard Horne said the agency was managing around four nationally significant cyber incidents every week on average, with the most damaging attacks increasingly traceable to hostile governments rather than criminal networks acting alone. He identified China, Iran and Russia as the primary sources of state-directed cyber activity aimed at the UK and its European allies.
Horne described the current moment as “the most seismic geopolitical shift in modern history” and warned that in or near a conflict scenario, Britain would likely face hacktivist attacks on a scale capable of causing disruption comparable to major ransomware incidents — but without the possibility of paying to restore compromised systems. He also noted that advances in artificial intelligence were expected to accelerate the pace of cyberattacks by enabling faster detection of system vulnerabilities.
Security Minister Dan Jarvis used the same conference to announce £90 million in additional cybersecurity investment over three years, including targeted support for small and medium-sized businesses. He called on leading AI companies to work with the government to develop AI-powered defences for critical national infrastructure, and invited businesses to sign a voluntary Cyber Resilience Pledge.
The NCSC’s warnings are consistent with assessments made by senior intelligence figures in recent months. MI5 said last year it had disrupted more than 20 Iran-linked plots on British soil since 2022. In September, former MI5 director general Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller suggested Britain may already be in a state of conflict with Russia, citing Moscow’s use of cyberattacks, sabotage and physical attacks on British territory as evidence that the threshold of war had effectively already been crossed.
