Putin, Blocked in Ukraine, Looks West to the Baltics

As Ukrainian drones stall Russia’s army in southern Ukraine, the Kremlin wants to change the subject. NATO nations around the Baltic fear that they will be it. A series of steps and countersteps — largely unreported in the American press — speak of war fears spreading among Russia’s western neighbors.Today, Romania reported that a Russian drone strayed across the border from Ukraine and hit an apartment building at the city of Galati, injuring two people. Romania’s defense ministry said it was the 28th time the nation has been hit by stray Russian drones, but the first time there were injuries. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, reacted: “Russia’s war of aggression has crossed yet another line.”On Thursday, Poland signed a mutual defense pact with Great Britain. Recalling the one signed in 1939 to block Nazi Germany, this one was signed to block Russia. “Both sides emphasize that Russia is a strategic threat,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters before flying to London.Brigadier General Christoph Huber attends a ceremony marking the expansion of Germany’s Lithuania military commitment on February 4, 2026 at Kaunas. Paulius Peleckis/Getty ImagesThe week before the signing, a Royal Air Force jet carrying home from Estonia Britain’s defense secretary, John Healey, had its satellite navigational signals jammed for over an hour while flying near Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave. Down on the water, Finland’s Coast Guard warned Monday that, due to jamming by Russia, all ship captains should carry paper maps — and know how to read them.Last week, 18,000 NATO troops wrapped up maneuvers on Gotland, a Swedish island strategically situated minutes by jet fighter from all North Atlantic Treaty capitals around the Baltic Sea. With the participation of troops from 12 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Ukraine, it was the first NATO exercise on the island since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine prompted Sweden to join NATO.Since then, Sweden has invested $250 million dollars in defense upgrades in a Rhode Island-sized chunk of rock that analysts call an “unsinkable aircraft carrier.” Neglected after the Cold War, Gotland now has state-of-the-art air defense systems and a regiment armed with tracked combat vehicles and Leopard 2 tanks.Leopard 2PL main battle tanks of the Polish armed forces crossing the Vistula River during NATO military exercises on March 4, 2024 near Gniew, Poland. Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesReflecting mounting worries about Russian aggression, the NATO command for Poland and the Baltics will be split in two this summer. Reuters reported Tuesday that the 1 German-Netherlands Corps, based in Münster, Germany, will be assigned to the defense of Latvia and Estonia. At full strength, the Corps would field about 50,000 soldiers. Working with the existing NATO command in Szczecin, western Poland, the new command is designed to bring “mass with speed” to the defense of the Baltics, a German officer tells Reuters.Rattling the small Baltic nations, President Trump mused this month about pulling America out of NATO. Then he flip-flopped about sending new troops to Europe. Finally, after Polish pressure, he agreed last week to send 5,000 soldiers to Poland.Yesterday, Russia’s foreign intelligence chief, Sergey Naryshkin, complained that NATO is preparing for a “large-scale conflict in the east.” He was quoted by the RIA news agency as warning that the European Union is turning into a military alliance “directed against Russia.” A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, joined the fray.President Vladimir Putin of Russia attends a ceremony to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin wall at Moscow on May 9, 2026. Alexander Nemenov/pool via AP“Let them first present at least some evidence,” she told reporters yesterday in Moscow when asked about GPS jamming allegations. “So far, these are just words, and you can’t take their word for it.”What began three years ago as an experiment to disrupt a NATO summit at Vilnius has mushroomed into a major form of hybrid warfare, according to Lithuania’s deputy communications regulator, Darius Kuliesius. Today, he says, Russia operates 36 “spoofing” antennae in Kaliningrad, up from three in 2023.In addition to blocking GPS signals, the antennae play an electronic warfare role, diverting Ukrainian long range drones into the territories of the three Baltic nations, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Ukraine has attacked Russia’s oil and gas exporting terminals in the Gulf of Finland.Last week, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, charged that Ukraine plans to launch attack drones against Russia from Latvia and other Baltic nations. Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine, he warned: “The foreign intelligence service of Russia says the coordinates of decision-making centers in Latvia are well known. Membership in NATO will not protect you from retaliation.”On May 7, an errant Ukrainian drone hit an empty oil tank in Latvia, prompting a political crisis and the resignation of the prime minister. The new prime minister, Andris Kulbergs, told reporters yesterday: “We will be strong and vocal about the need for the EU to support defence of the eastern front, it’s the highest priority for us.”Russia rivals Ukraine in mastery of electronic warfare technology. Yesterday, when President Vladimir Putin arrived at the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, his motorcade sped down specially-cleared avenues. Overhead was a helicopter. On the ground was an electronic warfare vehicle equipped to disorient attack drones.For many, the hijacking of drones and blocking of GPS signals are throwbacks to Mr. Putin’s days as a Soviet intelligence officer in communist East Germany. Then Soviet forces engaged in constant, low-level brinkmanship. It was largely to test response times and capabilities of NATO air and land forces.The Czech president, Petr Pavel, a retired general, recalls his days talking to Russian generals on the now disbanded NATO-Russia council. Their tactic, he says, was to provoke, but to always fall short of triggering Article 5. That is the “all for one, one for all” clause in the NATO founding document.German soldiers at Vilnius, Lithuania, May 22, 2025. AP/Mindaugas Kulbis“Russia developed a behavior style to almost meet the threshold for Article 5, but always keeping it slightly below that level,” he told the Guardian last week on the margins of the Globsec 2026 Forum at Prague.Verbal brinkmanship continues. In recent days, Belarus’s leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko, threatened to join Russia in attacking Ukraine from the north. In response, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces commander, Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, warned that Ukraine has identified 500 targets in Belarus. Indeed, beyond the brinkmanship and wars of words, there is always the real threat of war. On February 24, 2022, after weeks of threats, Mr. Putin sent his troops south from Belarus into Ukraine. Four years later, the opening of a northern front could be a calculated distraction created by a beleaguered Russian leader.“Russia is trying to mask gaps in its air defense with propaganda and lies,” Lithuania’s foreign minister, Kęstutis Budrys, posted Monday on X. “Accusations and threats toward the Baltic states are a desperate Kremlin attempt to divert attention from its failures in Ukraine.”Exiled Russian chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov agrees, in part.“This isn’t wrong, but Putin doesn’t need Ukraine, or any territory; he needs war,” he posted on X. “War is the only way he can see clinging to power.”Predicting Putin’s possible next chess move, he wrote: “Russia faltering in Ukraine is a reason Putin may escalate into NATO, though it seems paradoxical. He needs perpetual war, new enemies, new excuses for mobilization, new distractions from Russia’s collapse.”

Putin, Blocked in Ukraine, Looks West to the Baltics

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