Ex-Pentagon Official on Russia’s Shadow War: Hit Back, and Don’t Announce It

A former Pentagon official who ran the Russia and Ukraine portfolio for eight years says the West has been too passive in the face of Russia’s sabotage campaign across Europe, and that it’s time to respond in kind. Laura Cooper served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia from 2017 to 2025. Days after German officials blamed Moscow for a failed drone attack at Leipzig airport, she tells Independence Avenue Media that resilience is not deterrence, that the West needs response options Russia can feel but can’t necessarily trace, and that those should target Russia’s war machine rather than its civilians. Cooper also argues that Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries have broken the bargain Putin made with his own population — that most Russians would never feel the war.