Estonia’sForeign Intelligence Service said on Tuesday that Russia is preparing for a war with NATO within the next 10 years, adding to the list of Western countries who have warned of an impending military conflict with Moscow.
The service’s assessment, according to Director General of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service Kaupo Rosin, is based on Russia’s purported plans to double its number of troops stationed along its border with the eastern flank of NATO. That includes Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
“Russia has chosen a path which is a long-term confrontation…and the Kremlin is probably anticipating a possible conflict with NATO within the next decade or so,” said Rosin, who spoke with reporters after the release of Estonia’s annual security risk report on Tuesday.
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Tensions between Russia and the Western bloc continue to grow over fears that the war in Ukraine could boil over into other parts of Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed such assessments, however, as “complete nonsense.”
Rosin said Tuesday that it is “highly unlikely” for Russia to launch a greater military attack in the short term, given Moscow’s occupancy in Ukraine. But the Estonian official urged NATO to stay prepared for a potential threat.
“Even though Russia’s blitzkrieg plans have failed, Vladimir Putin still believes that by continuing the conflict, he can force the opposing parties to come to the negotiating table,” Rosin wrote in the foreword for Estonia’s security report. I refer to the opposing parties in plural because, in the Kremlin’s mindset, they are not only fighting Ukrainians, but their chosen path involves a long-term confrontation with the entire ‘collective West.'”
Newsweek reached out to Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.
Estonia’s assessment comes a few days after former President Donald Trump angered several Western leaders after suggesting that he would “encourage” Putin to attack any NATO countries that do not meet the alliance’s spending guidelines. Rosin told reporters on Tuesday that Trump’s comments “are never helpful,” according to Reuters’ report on the matter.
Other officials who dismissed Trump’s comments include Julianne Smith, U.S. Ambassador to NATO who said on Tuesday that the former president’s rhetoric was “dangerous and frankly irresponsible.” Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz also attacked Trump’s statement in a post to X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday, writing that, “NATO’s motto ‘one for all, all for one’ is a concrete commitment.”
“No election campaign is an excuse for playing with the security of the alliance,” he added in the post.
The NATO military alliance is built upon the agreements listed in Article 5, which mandates that any armed attack on one country member is an attack on all member states. Members of the alliance also have a defense spending target of roughly 2 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), although several countries do not meet this goal.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.