A Surge of Russian Sabotage Attacks in Europe, and Musk’s Political War Chest

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**Will Jarvis** (0:32)
From the New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Will Jarvis, in for Tracy Mumford. Today's Friday, September 4th. Here's what we're covering.
Across Europe over the past few years.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:45)
A railway line linking Warsaw to southeastern Poland was damaged by a weekend explosion.

**Will Jarvis** (0:50)
Officials have been sounding the alarm about a dramatic and escalating series of sabotage attacks that they say are being carried out by Russia.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:58)
It's part of a wider plot where Russia schemed to send the incendiary devices through a commercial carrier on planes that would potentially end up in the United States.

**Will Jarvis** (1:07)
The attacks began just after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as part of Russia's attempts to bring the war to the west more broadly. But security officials tell The Times that they're now becoming more intense and more frequent.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:19)
One of the drones equipped with military-grade explosives bounced off the wing of a plane on the Tarmac.

**Will Jarvis** (1:25)
In just the past week, German officials announced that Russia was behind a failed drone attack this summer on a Ukrainian cargo plane at a German airport, Polish officials said a fire at a drone factory was most likely caused by sabotage, and Denmark's intelligence service said Russia is recruiting Danes to attack defense companies.

**Michael Schwirtz** (1:44)
So for the moment nobody's been killed or seriously injured in these attacks, but the more frequently these things occur, the more that becomes a possibility. And this, according to officials that I've been talking to, is a looming crisis for NATO in the West.

**Will Jarvis** (1:59)
Michael Schwirtz covers global security issues for The Times.

**Michael Schwirtz** (2:03)
These attacks have posed a real challenge for NATO because NATO wasn't created to face down this type of challenge. NATO was created during the Cold War to deter and then fight against a land invasion from the Soviet Union. And Russian President Vladimir Putin has been very careful to pursue a campaign that seems to fall well below the threshold of a war, well short of Article 5, which is this central tenet of NATO that an attack on one is an attack against all. And this has left NATO struggling to respond.
They've kicked out diplomats, they've imposed sanctions, but they've realized that this is really doing little to blunt this Russian campaign. And so they are starting to experiment with some new ideas. Recently, in August, in fact, the German government authorized its spy services for the first time since World War II to carry out what are called active measures. So this is sabotage, cyberattacks, things like that, directed at Russia.
But experts and officials are telling me that even these kinds of more aggressive measures are not going to be enough. And so, for the time being, they expect these attacks simply are going to continue.

**Will Jarvis** (3:26)
Now, three quick updates on the Trump administration. First, at the White House yesterday.

**SPEAKER_7** (3:31)
In terms of the war and the timeline, will this war be over by the time of the midterm elections?

**JD Vance** (3:37)
Well, Caitlin, again, I don't...
I wouldn't call it a war. Right now, there is no active shooting.

**Will Jarvis** (3:42)
Vice President JD. Vance tried to downplay the war in Iran, saying he doesn't currently consider it a war at all. His comments came as the US and Iran have both launched airstrikes over the past week, attacks that shattered a nearly month-long pause in active fighting.

**JD Vance** (3:58)
When you ask, when will this end? You're asking me a question, like, when will the Iranians stop shooting at ships?
I think the reality is, I don't know the answer to that question. You would have to ask the Iranians.

**Will Jarvis** (4:08)
The vice president also said he did not have a timeline for how long the war will stretch on, suggesting that was up to Iran. Vance spoke from the White House briefing room, the first administration official to do that in weeks. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt recently stepped down from the role, and the White House has not announced anyone to replace her.
Also, the Times has learned that hundreds of federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security have been reassigned to scour the country's voter rolls for people who aren't citizens. The administration has launched the intensive operation, despite the fact that there's no evidence of widespread voter fraud. A database from a conservative think tank shows that over a quarter century, there were only about 100 instances of non-citizens voting. But President Trump has fixated on the issue, claiming without evidence that tens of thousands of non-citizens are registered to vote. Now, the administration has pulled DHS agents away from their normal duties, like investigating trafficking and terrorism. It's not clear what they will find in the voter rolls, or what would be done with that information.