Russia could use solar geoengineering to destabilize the European climate. Risks, data, and security issues.
Since stepping up its hybrid warfare in 2022, Russia has been stepping up its acts of sabotage, disinformation and cyberattacks in Europe. Added to these threats is a worrying possibility: the use of solar geoengineering as a lever for destabilization. By artificially modifying the climate—through the injection of aerosols into the stratosphere or the modification of cloud cover—a state could cause droughts, floods, or agricultural losses in a targeted territory. These techniques, which are still poorly regulated, are being tested in several countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, China, India, and Russia. The risk of military or coercive use of these technologies is now being taken seriously by intelligence services. The lack of international standards and detection mechanisms reinforces their potential for destabilization. The challenge now is to develop a doctrine of prevention and response.
A growing hybrid war, increasingly unpredictable methods
Since 2022, the Russian hybrid aggression campaign in Europe has intensified. Between 2014 and 2024, more than 200 incidents were documented, including industrial sabotage, electoral interference, GPS jamming, fires at logistics warehouses, and psychological operations. 86% of these events took place after the invasion of Ukraine. The change is both quantitative and qualitative: in 2024, there were six times more incidents than in 2023, and a marked diversification of targets.
Recent examples include the deterioration of a water network on the Swedish island of Gotland in May 2025, illegal underwater surveys off the coast of the United Kingdom, and the distribution of fake mobilization letters to Ukrainian refugees in Poland. These actions are aimed at disrupting European societies, diverting their attention from support for Kiev, and creating a climate of instability conducive to the political weakening of their governments.
Europe is responding. The United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Norway, and the Baltic countries have strengthened their legislation on unconventional hostile acts. NATO, for its part, launched the Baltic Sentry mission in January 2025 to better monitor submarine cables and critical infrastructure.
But these measures remain defensive. Meanwhile, hybrid warfare is evolving. According to several intelligence reports (MI6, DGSI, dissident FSB agents), Russia could expand its range of actions to include climate manipulation. The aim would not necessarily be to cause visible disasters, but rather to introduce persistent uncertainty into the management of natural resources, agriculture, and drinking water.
Solar geoengineering—for example, injecting sulfur particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect some of the sun’s rays—is inexpensive to deploy, difficult to detect, and allows for plausible deniability. A one-off operation could, in the short term, cause torrential rains in an agricultural area or, conversely, block essential rainfall. The magnitude of such an effect depends on the quantities dispersed, the location, and atmospheric conditions, but climate simulations show that even small interventions can already produce measurable imbalances.
These scenarios are still hypothetical, but the window of vulnerability is real. Europeans currently have no atmospheric monitoring capabilities dedicated to identifying deliberate climate operations. Weather agencies do not systematically cross-reference their data with security analyses. Furthermore, the absence of a binding international legal framework leaves the door open to strategic experimentation.
Finally, European public opinion, which is poorly informed on the subject, could be deeply destabilized in the event of a climate crisis attributed—rightly or wrongly—to human action. The mere suspicion of a hostile geoengineering act is enough to create confusion, reinforce mistrust, and even undermine social cohesion in times of economic or agricultural tension.
The state of research and technical challenges in solar geoengineering
Since 2024, the United Kingdom has been conducting a highly structured program of experimentation on solar geoengineering, combining laboratory research, modeling, and controlled field tests. With a budget of £56.8 million (≈ €63 million), this program supports 21 diverse projects: stratospheric aerosol injection, marine cloud whitening, Arctic sea ice reinforcement, cirrus thinning, and space mirror studies. For example, a balloon gondola project will test non-toxic particles at an altitude of 20 km, with recovery for analysis (no atmospheric release).
Deployment costs
According to studies by the Belfer Center, injecting five million tons of aerosols requires between $2 billion and $8 billion per year, or $500 to $1,600 per ton deployed. A long-term estimate puts the cost at ≈ 2.25 billion USD/year over 15 years. The effort involves approximately 4,000 flights/year, increasing annually, potentially requiring nearly 100 dedicated aircraft in the long term.
Technical complexity
To reach the stratosphere (11–17 km), the adaptation of civilian aircraft (Boeing 747, Gulfstream), military refuelers, balloons, or high-altitude cannons is being studied. There are many constraints: fuel cost, particle travel monitoring, interactions with ozone, and ground fallout.
Risks and uncertainties
These methods entail specific risks: disruption of precipitation cycles, threats to food security, and asymmetrical regional effects (creating winners and losers). Abruptly stopping injections could cause rapid warming and major ecological disruptions. The carbon impact of deployment—via CO₂eq emissions linked to the dedicated fleet—is not negligible.
A scientific and strategic challenge
With funding rising from $30 million per year to over £60 million in 2025, the United Kingdom is becoming one of the world’s leading financiers. This leadership provides an opportunity to define international protocols, governance and ethical standards. However, the absence of a binding legal framework leaves open the possibility of military or coercive use, particularly given the risk of inducing targeted climate crises through manipulation, with clandestine climate weapons capable of causing regional or cross-border economic, social, and political damage.
Potential uses of geoengineering for hostile purposes
While climate experiments are conducted for research or environmental prevention purposes, their use as an unconventional weapon is now being seriously considered by several intelligence services. Solar geoengineering is particularly suited to this misuse due to its moderate cost, difficulty of attribution, and potentially delayed or indirect effects, which make any act of retaliation or deterrence complex.
As part of a hybrid warfare strategy, a hostile actor could, for example, target an agricultural region by causing a rainfall deficit, leading to lower yields, higher food prices, and even social unrest. Conversely, excessive rainfall can flood crops, disrupt supply chains, or block the transport of strategic goods. In urban areas, artificially amplified heat waves or disrupted weather cycles can weaken electricity consumption or cause localized water shortages.
These effects do not need to be massive to be effective: the ambiguity, suspicion, and climate of political confusion they generate are enough to disrupt a country. In a European context marked by economic tensions, high social mistrust, and continued energy dependence, such targeted climate disruptions would have multiplied effects. The weapon would therefore be less physical than psychological and systemic.
Experts also point to the risk of unfounded accusations: in a tense context, a natural drought or flood could be interpreted as an act of climate warfare, triggering a disproportionate political response. This situation would create a strategic gray area that could be exploited by the aggressor to destabilize without intervening directly. The international legal uncertainty surrounding geoengineering reinforces this possibility.
Today, no international organization effectively oversees climate experiments. The protocol adopted under the Convention on Biological Diversity is not legally binding, and there is no treaty limiting or regulating the use of geoengineering in conflict situations. This regulatory vacuum paves the way for abuse, secret operations, and the absence of sanctions. In other words, climate manipulation could become the next frontier in covert warfare.
Russia has advantages in this area. Historically, Soviet scientists published numerous works on climate modification long before these topics became priorities in Anglo-Saxon circles. Despite its scientific isolation post-Ukraine, Moscow retains a technical and scientific culture around these technologies and a tradition of asymmetric tactical innovation, often outside the international legal framework. The combination of these elements—scientific expertise, risk tolerance, and the use of opaque methods—makes the hypothesis of a partial militarization of geoengineering by 2030 credible.
In the event of a real operation, European services would be ill-prepared. No atmospheric detection system is currently capable of identifying localized climate manipulation in real time. Weather satellites do not cross-reference their readings with military intelligence tools. This results in a total lack of attribution capability, and therefore of response.
Anticipating and countering the threat: what concrete actions should European states take?
Faced with the emergence of an artificial climate threat in the context of hybrid conflicts, European states must act on three priority fronts: detection, attribution, and international governance. Inaction would leave the field open to hostile strategies exploiting current legal loopholes and technological gaps.
The first challenge is detection capability. Today, no European country has atmospheric sensors specifically designed to monitor aerosol injection or intentional cloud cover modification. Standard meteorological tools are not calibrated to identify precise technical signatures linked to geoengineering operations. There is therefore an urgent need to develop a specialized atmospheric monitoring infrastructure that combines satellite data, advanced climate models, and in situ measurements. This technical monitoring could be supported by national space agencies, air forces, and climate research organizations.
The second pillar is attribution. Even if a climate anomaly is detected, it is extremely difficult to prove its intentional origin. A European applied research program could fill this gap by modeling scenarios of offensive use of geoengineering, mapping aerosol flows, and comparing chemical profiles with those from natural phenomena. Partial attribution of an event, even without definitive proof, would strengthen diplomatic or preventive response capabilities. Without this, states will remain vulnerable to a form of coercion without a designated culprit.
Third, international regulation is essential. At present, geoengineering is not covered by any binding multilateral treaty. European states must push for the creation of an intergovernmental task force, under the auspices of a neutral body such as the UN, to regulate experiments, assess risks, and define operational red lines. This group could establish a register of artificial climate activities and require prior notification of atmospheric experiments.
The United Kingdom, which actively funds geoengineering research through ARIA, could play a central role by bringing together the Nordic and Baltic countries, as well as France and Germany, in a joint climate resilience strategy against hybrid warfare. In the longer term, data from this research could be cross-referenced with military warning systems (cyber, electronic, space) to form an integrated multi-domain surveillance system.
At the national level, it is also becoming necessary to incorporate these threats into defense white papers, internal security strategies and civil protection doctrines. The potential impact of artificial climate disruption on crops, drinking water, energy, and public health requires coordination between ministries, particularly the armed forces, the ecological transition, the interior, and agriculture.
Finally, public awareness is essential. The perception of geoengineering as a “marginal scientific field” must be corrected. If public opinion is not prepared, a climate attack could have amplified social effects. The creation of a crisis communication unit specializing in climate events of undetermined origin could limit panic and structure the political response.
The militarization of geoengineering is no longer a theoretical scenario. The technologies exist, intentions may emerge, and vulnerabilities are known. Refusing to prepare for this would be tantamount to neglecting a strategic risk at the crossroads of climate and security. The ability to anticipate, detect, and respond will determine the resilience of European democracies in future conflicts.
War Wings Daily is an independant magazine.