The head of the CIA flew to Moscow this week for an extraordinary meeting that raised fears Vladimir Putin could be planning a major escalation.
John Ratcliffe’s purpose in the Russian capital was to warn Kremlin officials not to attack Washington’s Nato allies, in particular the Baltic states on its border, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Politico reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
The reports come as Moscow struggles with a stalemate on the battlefield in Ukraine and escalating drone attacks on oil refineries and other infrastructure inside Russia – raising concerns that Putin could seek to change the equation with a dramatic move.
Ratcliffe’s visit came shortly after after US intelligence warned that Russia could attack a Nato country within weeks. The report indicated this would fall below the threshold of all-out war but could involve a small-scale incursion into a Nato state in Eastern Europe to test and potentially fracture the alliance.
Russia appeared to deny reports it is planning an attack. Asked to comment on the CIA visit, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “A lot of this kind of scare-story material is being published right now. Of course, it has nothing to do with reality and nothing to do with the intentions of the Russian Federation.”
Moscow most notably denied plans of military aggression in the lead up to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Are the Baltics safe?
The Baltics have downplayed fears of an outright attack on the region.
“I want to clearly tell the people of Latvia: there is currently no reason for concern. Latvia’s level of military threat has not changed. The risk of direct military invasion threats to Latvia is currently low,” Latvia’s Prime Minister, Andris Kulbergs, said. “Readiness for a possible threat is not the same as an immediate threat. These two things must not be confused.”
Soldiers during a Nato-linked military exercise with British, Latvian, Canadian and Italian forces in Latvia (Photo: Damian Lemanski/Getty)The Estonian foreign ministry said: “Estonia’s threat assessment has not changed.”
“Throughout Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, US officials have met regularly with Russian representatives, so the CIA director’s visit should not be regarded as pivotal,” the statement said.
There are no signs of the kind of large-scale Russian military build-up near the Baltic states that preceded the invasion of Ukraine.
Yet Baltic politicians have repeatedly warned of Russian provocations in the region. Earlier this month, the Lithuanian defence minister, Robert Kaunas, warned that Russia was considering provocations including false-flag operations targeting critical infrastructure using Ukrainian drones.
In May, Russia’s ambassador to the UN claimed Moscow had information that Ukraine planned to launch military drones from Latvia and other Baltic states, a claim immediately rejected by Latvia as “pure fiction”. Several drones have crashed in the Baltic states with their origins unclear.
“Despite repeated communications by the Latvian side through diplomatic channels and in public stating that the Republic of Latvia has not given its consent for its territory and airspace to be used to carry out attacks against targets in the Russian Federation, the Russian side continues to spread lies and make escalatory statements,” the Latvian foreign ministry said.
Russia has sub-threshold options
To challenge Nato without passing the threshold for all-out war, Russia may increase so-called grey zone or hybrid threats, such as cyber attacks or sabotage.
Latvia’s foreign minister this week warned of growing risks of sub-threshold attacks on Europe. He said this could include cyber, disinformation, hostile information operations, sabotage activities or even the killing of activists.
“We have seen the burning of the ammunition factories. We have seen possible arson attacks on [former] prime minister [Keir] Starmer’s properties or planning of those,” he told PBS news. “We have seen in Leipzig, the armed drone in the airport near big transport aircraft. So there is no immediate military threat, but indeed the whole security situation in Europe, in the Euro-Atlantic zone, is… much more in need of proper understanding and reaction if necessary.”
The Lithuanian president, Gitanas Nausėda, said intelligence indicated Russia might be planning limited attacks on critical infrastructure such as energy and transport facilities,
Melanie Garson, a professor of international security at UCL, said Russia might plot “signalling actions that can cause maximum chaos”.
Garson added that Russia might work with other hostile states, like Iran, to target Europe’s critical infrastructure.
Police at the scene of a drone crash in Estonia. There are fears Russia could increase drone incursions into European airspace (Photo: Anni Onneleid/Reuters)Russia could increase its drone incursions into European airspace. There has already been a series of aerial incursions into Nato territory – though it isn’t clear if these have been entirely deliberate – and Baltic countries are privately concerned about more.
In May, a drone fitted with explosives hit an apartment building in Romania, and last week, another armed drone was found in a German airport and has been reportedly linked to a Russian intelligence service.
In early September, Russian drones violated Polish airspace, and later that month, three Russian fighter jets entered Estonian airspace, triggering urgent Nato meetings.
A leaked letter from three Baltic European commissioners to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned of a “deteriorating security environment” amid an “increased frequency of airspace violations and drone incursions”.
Garson suggested that airports could be a particular target for drone disruption. “We have already seen the effects of balloons and drones in key airspace, especially around airports,” she said.
Russia could deny responsibility for a large-scale drone incursion by suggesting they were heading to Ukraine but mistakenly changed course due to electronic warfare such as jamming.
Destruction caused by a Russian drone hitting an apartment building in Galati, Romania, in May (Photo: Getty)Little green men
But is there a chance that Russia could launch a military incursion?
There is no visible Russian military build-up around the Baltic states today as there was before the 2022 Ukraine invasion. However, an attempt to test Nato might not need one.
The Latvian president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, has warned that Moscow could try to test Article 5 without launching a full-scale invasion.
The Washington DC-based Institute for the Study of War suggested that any near-term Russian aggression could take the form of an air, missile or drone strike, or even a small land incursion that was not aimed at taking large amounts of territory but at testing Nato’s resolve to respond under Article 5.
The Baltic states are highly aware of a potential “little green men” scenario, seen against Ukraine in 2014.
This was the approach taken by Russia during its invasion of Crimea, which began with a smaller force without Russian insignia seizing key sites under the justification of protecting Russian interests, before being backed up by conventional military power and civil infrastructure.
If Russia wanted to test the reaction of the alliance, it could try a smaller-scale incursion, in an “ambiguous way”, where they snatch territory and hope Nato is “reluctant to go for a big response”, Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Rusi think-tank, said. “If that doesn’t work, they can always just pull back and claim it was all a terrible misunderstanding.”
One possible location for this is Narva, in Estonia, where Russia might send in a small number of troops ostensibly to defend an oppressed Russian minority.
“It could be an outright false flag, or it could just be a claimed threat, and so they would send in people saying they have a responsibility to protect people who are Russian culturally. Then you have a large conventional force backing them up,” Savill said. “If there’s a Nato response, you would fire on them and say, ‘well, you threatened our people who are only there to help protect Russian citizens.'”
However, Savill said that the concept of a sub-threshold attack or invasion was “woolly” and high-risk because it was hard to define the line for all-out war and to predict how Nato would respond.
“This can go badly wrong,” Savill said, pointing to an operation by the Russian paramilitary group Wagner in Syria to push out American troops in 2018, in which the US “called bluff” on the Russian position and killed hundreds of Wagner fighters. “There’s a kind of bluff and double bluff.”
Furthermore, the Baltics would fight back, said James Nixey, former director of the Russia and Eurasia programme at Chatham House.
“The Baltic states are well defended,” he told The i Paper. “Those three countries have been preparing for a Russian attack for over two decades. So while they are minuscule by size comparison, they have developed and refined plans to such an extent that Russia would get a very bloody nose if it tried anything.
“The more likely Russian move is a so-called hybrid attack – perhaps cyber, perhaps terror, perhaps a false flag as a pretext for later military action.
“In terms of Ratcliffe’s day-trip, it would be very out of character for this US administration to offer any warning or harsh words to Moscow. Besides, the last time a CIA chief visited Moscow – to warn the Russians not to invade Ukraine – the Russians, of course, did it regardless. They don’t take their orders from the American government. If anything, it’s the other way round.”
Russia’s moves depend on its desired outcome.
“If they’re trying to disrupt or scare off support for Ukraine, then you’re looking at disruption and sabotage, and that could involve violence,” said Savill. “If you are looking at something that threatens Nato cohesion, then what you’re looking at is a scenario that involves some kind of conventional threat, but used in such a way as to mean that the certainty of response is confused.”
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