Rasums: Russia Uses Ukraine War Talks to Try to Split NATO and Pull Its Forces Back from the Baltics
In an opinion piece published by Delfi, author Roberts Rasums argues that Russia is running a broad influence operation during its talks with the US on ending the war in Ukraine. He says its aim is to split EU and NATO unity and secure a gradual withdrawal of the alliance's forces from the Baltic states, Poland and Finland.
Delfi has published an analysis by Roberts Rasums on Russian foreign policy in connection with talks between Russia and the United States on settling the war in Ukraine. The author argues that Moscow is using the process for a wider influence operation that reaches far beyond the Ukrainian issue. The text presents the author's assessment, not an official conclusion.
The main goal
According to Rasums, the core of Russian policy is to split the unity of EU and NATO countries over support for Ukraine. At the same time, Moscow wants to tie a settlement of the war to a gradual withdrawal of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces from the Baltic states, Poland and Finland.
The author believes Russia's hybrid strategy rests on the thesis that war is the continuation of politics by other means. In his view, to understand how a Russia worn down by war plans to undermine NATO, the political perspective matters more than the military one. The war in Ukraine is only one part of Russia's struggle against the alliance.
Historical background
Rasums recalls that in December 2021, shortly before the full-scale war began, Russia demanded that NATO and the US dismantle the alliance's military infrastructure in countries that joined after 1997, including the Baltics.
Unconventional attacks
The author sees undermining NATO's presence in Eastern Europe as the central factor in Russian policy. In that context he examines a series of seemingly unrelated unconventional attacks on Europe:
- the closure of the Russia–Estonia border at Narva, which causes public anxiety;
- evidence that Russia is placing newly built tanks in long-term storage near the NATO border instead of sending them to the front;
- pressure from illegal migrants organised by Russia and Belarus on the borders of Latvia, Poland and Lithuania;
- an incident in mid-October on the Belarus–Latvia border, in which an unidentified person threatened a Latvian soldier with a firearm and border infrastructure was attacked the next day.
Rasums notes that this incident later became part of a wider information operation that raised alarm about the involvement of pro-Russian terrorist organisations. In his view, border security is a cornerstone of political security, which makes it an attractive target for provocations aimed at creating a political crisis from Riga to Brussels.
