As Russia and the US held talks in Saudi Arabia this week over the future of the conflict in Ukraine, countries on the Baltic Sea released a flurry of intelligence reports warning of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans to expand military conflict further into Europe.
Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned that Russia is expanding its armed forces in a way that “prepares for a potential future war with NATO”. Danish intelligence, meanwhile, have forecast that Russia would be ready to wage a “large-scale war” in Europe within five years, if it perceived NATO as weak.
A weakening of the trans-Atlantic alliance now feels inevitable. Following a withering attack on Europe delivered by US Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference last week, and Russia-US talks on Ukraine in Saudi Arabia this week, rumours swirled that the US under new President Donald Trump planned to pull its NATO troops from the Baltic States.
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are all former Soviet States and share a land border with Russia.
“There is a feeling that, if the trans-Atlantic bridge is not falling apart, it has been seriously damaged,” says Dr. Māris Andžāns, director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies Riga, Latvia. “Biden travelled to Kyiv during the war and now Trump is ready to travel to Moscow. It’s quite a turn-around.”
‘Large-scale war’?
The Nordic-Baltic 8 (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden) have been some of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since the full-scale Russian invasion began in 2022.
In the intervening years they have also ramped up their own efforts to counter possible Russian military aggression, from boosting defence spending to raising awareness among citizens of what to do in the event of large-scale conflict.
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In Lithuania, the government has reintroduced military conscription, doubled the size of its armed forces and ramped up defence spending to 3.45% of GDP – one of the highest rates of any NATO country.
Should a Russian invasion happen tomorrow, “we’re a lot better prepared than a decade ago”, says Andžāns. Although, he says, “there is still space for progress. We still don’t have critical aerial defence”.
A Latvian intelligence report released this week assessed the threat of Russia engaging in a direct conflict with a NATO country in the next 12 months as “low” – as long as it’s military is still fighting in Ukraine.
Since the conflict escalated in 2022, Russia has paused planned military developments along its northern borders with NATO countries, such as more than doubling the 30,000 troops it has stationed along its border with Finland.
“But the concern is, especially if the war in Ukraine stops, Russia will focus very much on rebuilding its military organisation,” says Katarzyna Zysk, professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies.
According to Latvian intelligence, in this scenario Russia would be able to restore its military force enough to pose a significant threat to NATO within five years.
Even while engaged in the conflict, Putin in September ordered that the Russian army be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active service members, which would make it the world’s second largest army, after China.
“Russia wants to achieve the objectives which it has been pursuing systematically since the early 2000s,” Zysk says – namely, expanding Russia’s sphere of influence and undermining the US as a dominant international force, especially in Europe.
“They are very expansive ambitions, and they indicate that Russia is preparing for a large-scale confrontation,” Zysk adds.
Hybrid warfare
That is not to say that Russia is set on military conflict – more that “it is something that you cannot rule out”, Andžāns says.
Hence Latvia’s installation of defence infrastructure including anti-tank obstacles along its borders with Russia and Belarus, and similar measures in Finland, Latvia and Estonia – all EU and NATO members that share land borders with Russia.
In a bid to prevent Russia weaponising the electricity grid against them, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania last week successfully connected to the European power grid, severing Soviet-era links with Russia’s network.
Read moreBaltic states join European power grid after cutting ties with Russia’s network
But the Baltic Sea, where eight EU and NATO countries share a maritime border with Russia, has already become a tension point, as several undersea telecom and power cables have been severed in recent months.
Moscow has denied deliberately targeting submarine infrastructure, which is frequently damaged by fishing trawlers. But experts, and politicians including Latvia’s president, have accused Russia of using non-military tactics to wage a “hybrid war”.
Hybrid war tactics aiming to destabilise societies and spread discord take place in the “gray zone”, below the threshold of armed conflict and outside legal frameworks, making them difficult for Western countries to identify and respond to. But they add to a sense that a form of conflict with Russia has already begun.
“Russia is conducting espionage in the Baltic Sea, both in the technical space and also the virtual space, and it is conducting information operations in Latvia,” Andžāns says.
Read moreRussia accused of meddling in the GPS systems of Baltic Sea countries
In the Latvian capital of Riga, there has been an uptick in pro-Russian vandalism cases, including a Molotov cocktail thrown inside the Latvian Occupation Museum, which documents the Nationalist and Soviet occupations.
The museum’s director said the bomb constituted an attack “on the foundations of the Latvian state, the constitution and the truth”.
“Russia is playing a very long game using this full spectrum of tools,” Zysk says.
Looking to the future, “Russia is certainly going to use political, economic and informational means to influence politics, polarize debates and create chaos”, Zysk adds.
“And I don’t see any reason why Russia would not use military means, under certain circumstances. It has proven time and time again that it is willing to do that.”
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