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A senior Ukrainian official has told Reuters news agency that recent Kiev intelligence reports suggest Putin is preparing for further steps in war rather than peace, including new operations in Ukraine or a possible attack on another European country.
This echoes a warning from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who predicted in September that Russia would expand the war by attacking another European country. Russian military experts are increasingly concerned that Russia will strike European targets outside Ukraine, such as NATO bases in the Baltic states.
Sources in Latvia and a second NATO country in Eastern Europe have warned that Russia is preparing a possible “provocation” in the Baltic states or Poland “in an attempt to test the cohesion of the Western military alliance,” The Guardian reported in June.
Such a move would risk bringing Russia into direct confrontation with the alliance, testing NATO's commitment under Article 5, that an attack on one member nation constitutes an attack on all.
Russia may seek to sow tensions within NATO with isolated attacks, comparable to a recent Russian drone attack in Romania, according to Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a defense and security think tank in London.
"The Russians would not aim for a war with NATO. But this could be used to divide NATO about how to respond," Watling told Reuters news agency.
He added that high tensions with NATO could give Putin a political justification within Russia for military recruitment. The new warnings come as NATO leaders gathered for a summit yesterday.
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