German intelligence is warning of a widening conflict in Europe with Russia after attacks on Kyiv during German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to the Ukrainian capital. The warning follows a recent expansion of Moscow’s campaign of hybrid operations against European countries that support Ukraine — operations that have increasingly focused on targets that include potential civilian casualties. 

The foiled plot in August by Russian agents at Leipzig airport in Germany using a drone strapped with explosives is just one example. The shift comes as Russia prepares an all-out assault against Ukraine and its economy in an attempt to crush the nation’s population during the depths of winter. Germany is providing $395 million in energy aid for Ukraine ahead of winter for generators, substations and repair work.

“The confrontation we face with Russia has taken on a new, more dangerous quality,” Martin Jager, the head of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, told his country’s parliament during a Monday address. “No other country currently poses such a direct, comprehensive and concrete threat to Germany.” The risk, the spy chief said, is that these threats could lead to full-scale conflict with NATO.

During Mr. Merz’s visit to Ukraine on Sunday, German companies inked 14 agreements with Ukrainian partners worth about $7.4 billion. The deals included an agreement with Diehl Defence for IRIS-T air-defense missiles, radar equipment from Hensoldt and jet-powered drone interceptors developed by Quantum Systems.

The agreements are part of a broader effort to tie Ukraine’s fast-growing defense industry into European industry and supply chains. After years in which the relationship largely consisted of Europe sending weapons east, Ukrainian firms are now bringing their own drones, missiles, software and — most importantly — battlefield experience west.

An executive at Ukrainian drone maker BlueBird Tech tells Threat Status that “Europe has factories, resources and industrial capacity. … Ukraine is in a very difficult situation, but because of that situation, we are gaining an enormous amount of practical experience.”

FBI agents arrested a California real estate agent suspected of spying for China by illegally gathering personal information on a relative of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te and providing it to Beijing, the Justice Department announced Monday. Zhang Wanying, also known as Heather Yang, has been charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government.

Ms. Zhang, 34, appeared in federal court in Los Angeles Monday and acknowledged the charges against her. An FBI complaint in the case revealed that a counterintelligence investigation into Ms. Zhang and another Chinese official not identified by name has been underway since 2025.

Ms. Zhang and the unnamed Chinese official both attended the University of International Relations in Beijing, which the CIA has identified as a training ground for intelligence officials closely linked to the Ministry of State Security, China’s main civilian intelligence agency.

People with extensive experience in information warfare have observed that, for the past 25 years, the U.S. military has “systematically dismantled, de-emphasized and underfunded an influence-related force structure. It has instead relied increasingly on mission privatization,” writes Josh Segal, a retired U.S. Navy information warfare officer, in an op-ed for The Washington Times.

“Beginning in the early 2000s, as mission requirements expanded beyond what available forces could handle, the military became increasingly dependent on marketing firms and contractor support,” Mr. Segal writes. “This fostered a generation of officers and enlisted personnel accustomed to a landscape in which privatized campaigns were the norm.

“Consequently, military force structures failed to expand to address the gap, specialized skills were lost, and psychological operations forces were mostly relegated to the rear echelon. Outsourcing ‘influence’ to high-overhead, profit-driven enterprises may shift public attitudes, but it typically offers limited value in altering beliefs or behaviors in authoritarian societies,” he writes.

“In late September, Tehran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen fired a ballistic missile at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and cruise missiles and drones aimed at an Aramco oil facility in Yanbu,” Dr. Sheila Nazarian writes in an op-ed for The Times. She is a Los Angeles physician whose family escaped from Iran to America. 

“On Sept. 3, the Iranian regime fired missiles and drones at American bases in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates,” she writes. “The Houthis seized the port of Mokha and the island of Perim at the mouth of the Red Sea, the group’s biggest territorial gains in years.

“President Trump and our allies are still deciding whether the U.S. will take action against the group,” Dr. Nazarian writes. “As we approach the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, the Israeli hostages are home, but the regime that armed and trained their captors is still shooting.”

• Oct. 7 — 25 Years Since the Anthrax Attacks: Where Are We Now? Center for Strategic & International Studies

• Oct. 7 — The Nuclear Energy Renaissance: The Challenges of Governance with the Advent of Artificial Intelligence, Stimson Center

• Oct. 8 — The Middle East Beyond the Iran War, Middle East Institute

• Oct. 12-14 — AUSA Annual Meeting and Expo, Association of the U.S. Army

• Oct. 15 — The Rise and Fall of the U.S.–Pakistan Relationship After 9/11, Stimson Center

• Oct. 21 — A Discussion with U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Andrew Puzder, Hudson Institute

• Nov. 20-22 — Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada, HFX