The increasingly intense alarm signals of imminent Russian mobilization and escalation may seem surreal. Hasn't Russia's terrorist bombing of civilian targets in Ukraine already escalated to the highest levels since Russia entered the war almost five years ago?
More and more innocent children and adults are killed, homes are blown up and hospitals and schools are on fire. When the Russian armed forces have driven into the battlefield, Putin's calculation is that the will to resist must be broken down by destroying the living conditions of the Ukrainians so that the country will eventually become uninhabitable.
At the same time, Russia's needlessly hidden shadow war against many countries in Europe, in the form of bombings, assassination attempts and influence operations, has become more extensive than ever.
Still, the warnings coming from a range of European intelligence services and governments about a coming Russian escalation should be taken seriously: it could get much worse. Both in Ukraine and on NATO's eastern flank.
Every day there is information about sabotage and other types of gray zone operations linked to Russia. In recent days, Estonia has singled out Russia for ordering an arson attack on an arms factory in the capital Tallinn, which supplies drones to Ukraine.
As expected, Moscow denies all the accusations and insists that Russia has no plans for military strikes against Europe. But at the same time, Moscow is sending signals in its psychological warfare that are hard to misunderstand: last week, Putin claimed that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are violating the rights of Russian speakers and that Russia has the right to take countermeasures "on humanitarian grounds and within the framework of international law."
Protection of the well-being and woes of "compatriots" is a well-proven argument that Russia has used many times to justify military intervention in other countries.
When the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland on September 17, 1939 – in accordance with the agreement with Nazi Germany to partition Poland – the rationale was to protect the Ukrainian and Belarusian population. Hitler had occupied the western half of Poland and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov declared that "the Polish state has ceased to exist".
Similar legalistic arguments were used by the Kremlin in the invasion of Georgia in 2008 and in the annexation of Crimea and incursion into Donbass in 2014. Even the ongoing large-scale assault on Ukraine launched on February 24, 2022, Putin justified by the need to protect Russian-speaking lives, even though his warfare has claimed the lives of countless ethnic Russians.
Estonia and Latvia have large Russian-speaking minorities, and in both countries ethnic Russians make up over 20 percent of the population (in Lithuania only five percent). A number of cities on the Russian border, such as Estonian Narva and Latvian Daugavpils, are largely Russian-speaking. That makes them vulnerable to destabilization operations from Russia.
On Estonia's side, efforts are being made to downplay the immediate threat, despite threatening signals from Moscow. The country's president Alar Karis declared this week that Russia is unlikely to attack Estonia in the near future. But he believes that it is impossible to predict what the situation will look like in five or ten years.
The Estonian intelligence service assesses that most of Russia's ground forces and military equipment are tied up in Ukraine. There is no evidence that Russia is preparing a conventional attack on NATO or any of the Baltic states.
Military posts on the Russian side of the border are unmanned. Russia lacks the military capacity to start a new conflict against a NATO member state. The military of American and European countries are present in the region. A military attack on Estonia could lead to a major war with the entire alliance.
Don't confuse Russian hybrid warfare with tanks rolling in, Estonian leaders urge. It only creates panic, and that is exactly what Putin wants to induce in order to weaken Europe's support for Ukraine.
Even Poland, the largest frontline state, is exposed to Russian hybrid operations. Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned on Wednesday that the country faces "very difficult weeks and months", as Russia's attacks on Ukraine move ever closer to the Polish border.
The government in Warsaw is focusing on preventing the growing threat from spilling over into Polish territory. But neither is Poland considered to be at risk of an immediate attack. This year, the country spends 4.7 percent of its GDP on defense, the highest proportion within NATO. The Polish military is undergoing a major modernization and is in the process of becoming NATO's main conventional ground force.
Read more:
The shadow war - how the Kremlin attacks Europe in secret
New Russian mobilization may come after the Duma elections
