By Paul Goble|
10/06/2026
Whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will launch an attack on the Baltic countries, as many now fear is possible, remains uncertain (seeStrategic Snapshot, June 8, 2025; see EDM, September 4, 2025, May 8;Novaya Gazeta Evropa, June 5). Moscow is pushing a propaganda line that has consequences not only for the Baltics but for all members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Senior Russian officials are now very publicly declaring that the three Baltic countries, all members of NATO, cannot count on the alliance to come to their aid if Moscow attacks them, as Article 5 of the treaty requires, because they, not Russia, are the aggressor (Re:Baltica, June 4). Such a claim—one arising from Putin’s assessment of NATO’s current state amid changes in U.S. policy and divisions in Europe—will intimidate some alliance members and pave the way for further Russian aggression unless NATO unequivocally rejects it (see EDM, February 2).
As Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds on in its fifth year with no path to a Russian triumph clear, many are speculating that Putin will try to get a victory elsewhere to recover his image as a strongman who always wins. Among the places where experts have most often suggested he might attack are islands in the North Atlantic and Baltic Seas with complicated legal regimes (see EDM, June 11, August 15, September 24, 2024,September 16, 2025).
In recent months, however, speculation about a new vector of Russian aggression has focused increasingly often on the possibility of a Russian move against one or more of the Baltic countries, given their former status as Russian possessions. Their current membership in the Western alliance is especially irritating to Putin and is something he would very much like to change (Novaya Gazeta Evropa, June 5). Such suggestions have become increasingly frequent given Russian provocations such as the recent redirection of Ukrainian drones onto Latvian territory by Russian forces (Window on Eurasia, June 1).
Anastasija Tetarenko-Supe, a Latvian foreign policy expert and journalist, points out that Nebenza’s words are especially troubling. They were not an isolated move but part of what she calls “a perfect storm” of Russian actions against the Baltic countries (Re:Baltica, June 4). On the same day the Russian diplomat made his remarks at the UN Security Council, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) released a report saying that Ukrainian military personnel were already in Latvia to prepare drone strikes against Russia and that Moscow “knew the coordinates of the relevant ‘decision-making’ centers” (SVR, May 19). This is something Russian Telegram channels had earlier claimed, but it now has the imprimatur of the Russian government, even though it is quite clear that, similar to many other Russian statements on such subjects, it is itself a provocation and untrue.
Titarenko-Supe says major Russian propaganda channels and state-affiliated news wires amplified support for the Nebenza–SVR version of events. These outlets particularly included “TASS, Readovka, Voekony Russkoy Vesny, Solovoyev, Skabeyeva, [and] ANNA,” among others. Channels targeting Baltic audiences then picked it up, including “Baltnews, Sputnik Lithuania, Sprats in Exile, The Latvian Bump, Shadows of the Baltics, Baltic Anti-Fascists and The Baltic Bridge.” She explained, “Some of these are linked to former RT (formerly Russia Today) contributors who once lived in the Baltics, as well as local activists who fled to Russia” (Re:Baltica, June 4).
Some channels went even further, portraying denials by Latvian officials not as rebuttals but as “proof” that the SVR had struck a nerve. Titarenko-Supe says, citing Latvian disinformation researcher Mārtiņš Hiršs’s conclusions, that what Moscow is doing is consistent with its past actions on other issues. The Kremlin floods the media with its version in the hopes that volume will outweigh the facts and that journalists seeking to be balanced will report its version of events, one that makes Latvia the aggressor and Russia the defender of international law, alongside more accurate reporting that shows just the reverse is true. (For Hiršs’s study on such patterns, see Echoes from Kremlin: New Platforms, Old Narratives, July 2025.)
Echoing Hiršs, Titarenko-Supe argues that Moscow’s “objective” has been to spread fear while recasting the Baltics from bystanders to participants. This makes Russian threats appear less like aggression and more like a response” and “to weaken support for Ukraine and erode trust in Latvian democratic institutions by suggesting that governments conceal the truth, the media lies and the truth is told by Russia—or [a] Tiktoker broadcasting from Belarus” (Re:Baltica, June 4). One could add to this list of Russia’s goals the reduction in trust in NATO and its Article 5 guarantees, a development that would threaten far more than Latvia and the other Baltic countries and make Europe an even more unstable place unless and until NATO makes it crystal clear that it will not be deterred from fulfilling its Article 5 guarantees by Russian threats and propaganda campaigns.