{"id":14259,"date":"2026-06-26T16:26:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/14259\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T16:26:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:26:57","slug":"fears-russia-is-planning-military-provocations-against-the-baltic-states-or-poland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/14259\/","title":{"rendered":"Fears Russia is planning \u2018military provocations\u2019 against the Baltic States or Poland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two countries on Nato\u2019s<\/a> eastern flank have warned that Russia <\/a>is preparing a possible \u201cprovocation\u201d in the Baltic States or Poland<\/a> in an effort to test the cohesion of the western military alliance.<\/p>\n

Western sources also fear there could be danger on the horizon because the Kremlin is coming under pressure from Ukraine\u2019s <\/a>campaign of long-range attacks on targets near Moscow and St Petersburg.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Latvian intelligence said: \u201cWe see indications that Russia is preparing military provocations against the Baltic countries or Poland.\u201d However, it would be well short of a full-scale attack.<\/p>\n

A senior political source from a second Nato member made a similar statement last week. They said \u201cwe are picking up intelligence\u201d that Vladimir Putin<\/a> was \u201cplanning something against the Baltic States\u201d.<\/p>\n

They said Putin might be willing to test US support for some of Nato\u2019s smallest member countries \u2013 Estonia<\/a>, Latvia <\/a>and Lithuania <\/a>\u2013 in a desperate effort \u201cto throw the dice\u201d as Russia struggles with its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Latvian intelligence said Russia was not capable of opening a second front, but was considering \u201chybrid attacks, such as missiles, drones or other actions designed to send a signal: stop supporting Ukraine, or you will have your own problems\u201d.<\/p>\n

Though the warnings appear linked, there was only limited supporting detail, unlike the detailed warnings released by the CIA<\/a> and MI6 before Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n

But they come at time when Russia\u2019s advance in Ukraine has stalled, raising questions about whether the Kremlin would turn to alternative strategies to break the deadlock or change the dynamics in its favour.<\/p>\n

Keir Giles, a Russia expert with the London-based Chatham House think tank, said: \u201cMoscow will be looking for ways to disrupt the current trend, through horizontal escalation [spreading the conflict to other countries] or doing something elsewhere. We should not expect Russia to passively lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s relative weakness was underlined this week when drone relay stations in Belarus stopped operating after Ukraine threatened to attack them. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine\u2019s president, had given Belarus a one-week warning last Friday, saying the equipment enabled Russian attacks on his country.<\/p>\n

\"SmokeSmoke billows behind an Orthodox church following a reported Ukrainian drone attack, in Moscow, Russia. Photograph: EPA <\/p>\n

One Telegram channel reported that the Belarusian authorities in the Brest and Gomel regions of the country had demanded the mobile operators dismantle the repeaters because they were interfering with grouse nesting sites.<\/p>\n

Nato will hold its annual summit in Ankara, Turkey, this month amid uncertainty about US commitment to the alliance. On Wednesday, US president Donald Trump<\/a> said he felt \u201clet down\u201d by European allies who did not allow the US air force to bomb Iran from airfields in their countries.<\/p>\n

Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine there have been several waves of Russian sabotage and provocative activity, including the planting of firebombs in DHL parcels in the UK, Poland and Germany in the summer of 2024.<\/p>\n

Last September, 19 Russian decoy drones crossed into Polish airspace, prompting Nato to scramble jets to try to shoot them down as people in three eastern provinces were told to shelter indoors.<\/p>\n

Ukraine has gradually developed a home-grown deep strike attack capability able to hit targets 2,000km inside Russia. Last week nearly 200 drones hit several locations in Moscow and black oil rained down on parts of the Russian capital after a refinery was bombed.<\/p>\n

A western military source said there was a concern that Russia could lash out if Putin thought he was under pressure as the war shifted to the skylines of Moscow and St Petersburg. \u201cI cannot lie, that is a period of danger,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Worries about a possible Russian escalation also surfaced in the autumn of 2022, when a sudden set of reversals in Kharkiv province led to western fears that Moscow could even use a nuclear weapon to protect itself. But there was no evidence of steps to an actual deployment and the frontline stabilised by the end of the year. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two countries on Nato\u2019s eastern flank have warned that Russia is preparing a possible \u201cprovocation\u201d in the Baltic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8474,328,1598,352,9856,9855,9],"class_list":["post-14259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-cia","tag-estonia","tag-latvia","tag-lithuania","tag-mi5","tag-north-atlantic-treaty-organisation-nato","tag-poland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}