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Eastern Flank Warns Putin May Trigger Provocations to Shake NATO Unity
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Two NATO members on the alliance's eastern flank have warned that Russia is preparing a possible provocation against the Baltic states or Poland to test Western military cohesion, The Guardian reported on June 26.
Latvian intelligence stated this week that it sees indications Russia "is preparing military provocations against the Baltic countries or Poland," while a senior political source from a second alliance member reported picking up matching intelligence last week.
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Officials assessed that any such move would fall well short of a full-scale attack.
A senior political source from a second NATO member made a similar assessment a week earlier, reporting that "we are picking up intelligence" that the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, was "planning something against the Baltic states."
The source indicated that Putin might be willing to test US support for the alliance's smallest members—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—in a desperate effort "to throw the dice" as the invasion of Ukraine falters.
Latvian intelligence added that Russia could not open a second front, but was weighing hybrid attacks involving missiles, drones or other actions. Such steps, officials emphasized, would be designed "to send a signal: stop supporting Ukraine, or you will have your own problems."
The warnings surface as Russia's advance in Ukraine has stalled, raising questions about whether the Kremlin would turn to alternative strategies to break the deadlock.
Keir Giles, a Russia expert at the Chatham House think tank, noted that Moscow would seek to disrupt the current trend through horizontal escalation or action elsewhere. "We should not expect Russia to passively lose," he warned.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had given Belarus a one-week warning, stating the equipment enabled Russian attacks on his country.
Ukraine has steadily built a homegrown deep-strike capability able to reach targets 2,000 kilometers inside Russia. Last week, nearly 200 drones struck several locations in Moscow, and a refinery was hit, causing oil to spill across parts of the capital.
More restrained: There remains concern among Western officials that Russia could escalate if the Kremlin sees growing pressure from Ukrainian strikes reaching Moscow and St Petersburg, according to a Western military source.
"I cannot lie, that is a period of danger," the source acknowledged. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has carried out repeated waves of sabotage, including firebombs planted in DHL parcels in the UK, Poland and Germany in the summer of 2024.
Last September, 19 Russian decoy drones crossed into Polish airspace, prompting NATO to scramble jets while residents in three eastern provinces sheltered indoors.
Ukraine's battlefield experience has increasingly become a reference point for NATO's eastern flank as those states brace for Russian pressure. Poland has moved to deploy domestically produced weapons and drone systems to the Ukrainian front for real-world combat validation, pairing Ukrainian frontline experience with Polish industrial capacity.
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