Cross-sectional European, political, and field intelligence reports have revealed growing Western fears that the Kremlin is preparing for "military provocations" and hybrid operations targeting NATO's eastern flank, specifically the Baltic states and Poland.

These warnings come as Russian advances on the ground in Ukraine have stalled and military pressure on Moscow has increased due to Kyiv's success in moving drone battles deep into Russian airspace and targeting vital facilities near Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Indicators that put NATO to the test

Latvian intelligence services reported initial indications that Russia was preparing concrete military provocations against Poland or the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), suggesting that these moves would not amount to a full-scale military invasion.

The data intersects with what a senior political source in a second NATO member state said his country had received information that Russian President Vladimir Putin was "planning something" targeting the Baltic states as a kind of political gamble to test the commitment of Washington and the rest of the allies to jointly defend the alliance's smallest geographically members.

Despite the seriousness of these indicators, the military and security circles confirmed that the current warnings are fundamentally different from those before the war in Ukraine in February 2022; while the intelligence assessments issued at the time by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and British intelligence were supported by accurate and detailed information, the current warnings lack the same substantive details and operational depth.

'Horizontal escalation' tactics to counter Ukraine's long-range attacks

Keir Giles, an expert on Russia at Chatham House ThinkTank, explained that Moscow will not accept a loss or a recession on the ground negatively, but will look for ways to disrupt the current trend by resorting to "horizontal escalation," which means expanding the area of the conflict geographically to include other countries in different arenas.

Latvian intelligence expects Russia, unable to open a second conventional war front, to resort to intensified "hybrid attacks" that include missile launches, drones, or targeted sabotage operations to send a clear message to the West that it must stop supporting Ukraine.

These escalatory fears are increasing in conjunction with a surge in Kyiv's offensive capabilities, which has enabled it to bomb strategic positions up to 2,000 kilometers deep inside Russian territory.

Last week saw an intensified attack by about 200 Ukrainian drones that hit several sites in Moscow, causing a "black rain" of oil to fall on parts of the Russian capital after a vital refinery was targeted there. According to a Western military source, the spillover of the war into Moscow and St. Petersburg puts the region in a "dangerous phase" that could prompt Putin to react uncalculatedly.

Technical paralysis of drone stations in Belarus

In a related context, there were striking indications this week that Russian drone signal relay stations in Belarus have stopped working.

The suspension followed a one-week deadline given by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Belarus in which he threatened to target the equipment used to support Russian attacks against his country.

Telegram channels reported that local authorities in the Belarusian regions of Brest and Gomel had asked telecommunications companies to dismantle the transmitters, officially justifying the measure as "affecting the nesting sites of the birds of the gradient."

These developments on the ground are a continuation of a series of subversive and provocative activities attributed to Moscow in Europe since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, including the planting of incendiary devices inside cargo packages in Britain, Germany, and Poland in the summer of 2024.

Last September, 19 Russian deceptive drones penetrated Polish airspace, forcing NATO to send fighter jets to intercept them and imposing a temporary curfew on residents of three eastern Polish provinces.

Ankara summit and uncertainty over U.S. position

The heated developments coincide with NATO's preparations for its annual summit in Ankara this month, amid uncertainty about the nature and extent of the United States' commitment to the security of European allies.

European military experts said that this security fragility is in line with previous warnings published by the French newspaper Le Parisien in December 2025, which identified the Baltic states as a "weaker link" and pointed to the strategic danger of the Suwaki Corridor as a candidate area to receive Russian provocations aimed at cutting off land communication between NATO countries.

Complicating the summit's calculations is the recent statements of US President Donald Trump, in which he expressed his "disappointment" towards European allies under the pretext that they will not allow the US Air Force to use their air bases to carry out strikes against Iran, which raises serious questions about the future of the US reaction in the event that one of the junior members is provoked by Russian "horizontal escalation".