European intelligence officials warn that a Russian sabotage campaign is escalating

I dont really care what the UK and its politicians do or say. The press though should tell things as they are.

On further research though, the operation was to hinder an operation or at least create inconvenience. It does not seem to have any ideological, social or political purpose

>Sabotage is typically the deliberate destruction or damage of property or resources to hinder an operation, while terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation to achieve political, ideological, or social goals.

Because the goal is to cause destruction, not terror.

Because that would piss putin off and the UK always backtracks when that's possible, with ministers even publicly apologising to him on tv news.

No. We're all adults in the real world. At this time Russia has strategic leverage over Europe's energy. European defense capacity and readiness is also a problem in escalation. That said, shit or get off the pot EU and UK

The goal of a lot of these attacks are explicitly to provoke a dramatic response, by quietly dealing with these threats Europe denies Russia their victory. It's also cheaper to just fix the damage then start a war or escalate. Russia's goal for these attacks appear to be provoke a kinetic response that the Kremlin can point to to justify further wars and mobilization.

Not really. Russia is a little kid while Europe is the adult. No need to escalate it. In many scenarios Russia is going to fall anyways.

Europe will probably respond, but it doesn't have to use the exact same coin.

You say that like they aren't. What do you think Ukraine has been doing?

Why call this sabotage and not terrorism?

This right here is my problem with Europe - we allow ruskie bydło to burn our warehouses and factories and we don't do anything in return, giving them a green light.

Governments should use special forces to perform sabotage ops in Russia as well.