As Russia and the US debate Ukraine’s future, countries on the Baltic Sea are ramping up preparations for a military conflict amid fears that Russia is preparing for a future war with NATO.
Issued on: 19/02/2025 -
FRANCE24
By: Joanna YORK
01:52
A crew member monitors the horizon from the bridge deck of patrol ship HMS Carlskrona (P04) as part of the NATO Baltic Sea patrol mission on February 4, 2025.
© Johan Nilsson, AFP
As Russia and the US held talks in Saudi Arabia this week over the future of the conflict in Ukraine, countries on the Baltic Sea released a flurry of intelligence reports warning of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans to expand military conflict further into Europe.
Estonia’s Foreign Intelligence Service warned that Russia is expanding its armed forces in a way that “prepares for a potential future war with NATO”. Danish intelligence, meanwhile, have forecast that Russia would be ready to wage a "large-scale war" in Europe within five years, if it perceived NATO as weak.
A weakening of the trans-Atlantic alliance now feels inevitable. Following a withering attack on Europe delivered by US Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference last week, and Russia-US talks on Ukraine in Saudi Arabia this week, rumours swirled that the US under new President Donald Trump planned to pull its NATO troops from the Baltic States.
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are all former Soviet States and share a land border with Russia.
“There is a feeling that, if the trans-Atlantic bridge is not falling apart, it has been seriously damaged,” says Dr. Māris Andžāns, director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies Riga, Latvia. “Biden travelled to Kyiv during the war and now Trump is ready to travel to Moscow. It’s quite a turn-around.”
‘Large-scale war’?
The Nordic-Baltic 8 (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden) have been some of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters since the full-scale Russian invasion began in 2022.
In the intervening years they have also ramped up their own efforts to counter possible Russian military aggression, from boosting defence spending to raising awareness among citizens of what to do in the event of large-scale conflict.
01:26
In Lithuania, the government has reintroduced military conscription, doubled the size of its armed forces and ramped up defence spending to 3.45% of GDP – one of the highest rates of any NATO country.
In Lithuania, the government has reintroduced military conscription, doubled the size of its armed forces and ramped up defence spending to 3.45% of GDP – one of the highest rates of any NATO country.
Should a Russian invasion happen tomorrow, “we’re a lot better prepared than a decade ago”, says Andžāns. Although, he says, “there is still space for progress. We still don’t have critical aerial defence”.
A Latvian intelligence report released this week assessed the threat of Russia engaging in a direct conflict with a NATO country in the next 12 months as “low” – as long as it’s military is still fighting in Ukraine.
Why Europe’s leadership is skeptical of negotiating with Putin
The idea that US President Donald Trump’s negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin will bring about lasting peace in Ukraine has been met with scepticism across Europe. FRANCE 24 spoke to political scientist Anton Shekhovtsov about what the US can learn from earlier attempts to end Russian occupation across the former Soviet Union.
Issued on: 19/02/2025 -
By: Paul MILLAR
In this pool photograph distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Russia's President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the government via videoconference, at the Constantine Palace in Strelna, St. Petersburg, on February 18, 2025. © Mikhail Metzel, AFP
“About us, without us”. Hearing this slogan, popularised across what was then Czechoslovakia in the wake of the 1938 Munich agreement, it’s not hard to see why some commentators are reaching back to the eve of World War II to attack US President Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict directly with Moscow. The Munich agreement, struck by the major European powers in 1938, ceded the country’s strategic Sudetenland to Nazi Germany to stave off the threat of war, in vain.
Kyiv, like Prague before it, has so far been left out of the talks taking place between negotiators from Russia and the US – talks that will quite literally determine the shape of Ukraine’s future. And while President Volodymyr Zelensky has not hidden his disappointment in being excluded from the first round of preliminary talks in Riyadh this week, Trump has been unsympathetic.
“I hear that they're upset about not having a seat," he told reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday. “Well, you've been there for three years ... You should have never started it. You could have made a deal."
Read moreTrump brands Zelensky 'a dictator'
But those sceptical of the prospects of such a deal being struck between the White House and the Kremlin don’t have to look as far back as the 1930s. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian troops have repeatedly occupied swathes of territory in former Soviet republics – and despite years of negotiations overseen by European powers, they still haven’t left.
In Moldova, Russian forces are still stationed in the breakaway region of Transnistria, which declared its – largely unrecognised – independence as the USSR fell in ruins around it. And a full fifth of Georgia’s territory is still occupied by Russian troops who routed Tbilisi's forces following the Georgian government’s efforts to violently suppress secessionist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
In both cases, fierce fighting gave way to frozen conflicts as European powers pushed for negotiated ends to the bloodshed.
Anton Shekhovtsov, a visiting professor at the Central European University in Vienna and a researcher on European nationalist movements, spoke with FRANCE 24 about what the US could learn from these long-stalled efforts to bring about lasting peace in the former Soviet Union.
Watch moreThe death of NATO? Europe in crisis over Trump-Putin talks
Looking back at the 2008 crisis in Georgia, we seem to have a couple of competing narratives. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy as the mediator put forward the idea that this was a successful de-escalation, a way of ensuring that Russia’s advance towards Tbilisi was stopped. Whereas other people, especially in the context of what later happened in Ukraine, look back at this moment as almost having given the green light for Putin to extend Russian influence into other former Soviet republics. In your view, what are some of the lessons we should be learning from how that conflict was handled in 2008?
Before 2008 there was another case, and that case is actually older than any of the things that we are discussing today – it’s the case of Transnistria and Moldova. Transnistria is Moldovan territory, and it’s been occupied by the Russians since the beginning of the 90s. And there were several meetings, several conferences throughout the period that followed the occupation of Transnistria, where Russia agreed to withdraw its military forces, its occupation forces from Moldova – and it failed every deadline. The forces are still there.
As to 2008, I understand why Sarkozy was bragging about that being the conclusion of the conflict, but it wasn’t. Even that agreement stipulated that Russia would withdraw its forces, and that did not happen.
What is the Ukrainians' reaction to Trump blaming Ukraine for not ending the war?
“About us, without us”. Hearing this slogan, popularised across what was then Czechoslovakia in the wake of the 1938 Munich agreement, it’s not hard to see why some commentators are reaching back to the eve of World War II to attack US President Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate an end to the Ukraine conflict directly with Moscow. The Munich agreement, struck by the major European powers in 1938, ceded the country’s strategic Sudetenland to Nazi Germany to stave off the threat of war, in vain.
Kyiv, like Prague before it, has so far been left out of the talks taking place between negotiators from Russia and the US – talks that will quite literally determine the shape of Ukraine’s future. And while President Volodymyr Zelensky has not hidden his disappointment in being excluded from the first round of preliminary talks in Riyadh this week, Trump has been unsympathetic.
“I hear that they're upset about not having a seat," he told reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday. “Well, you've been there for three years ... You should have never started it. You could have made a deal."
Read moreTrump brands Zelensky 'a dictator'
But those sceptical of the prospects of such a deal being struck between the White House and the Kremlin don’t have to look as far back as the 1930s. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian troops have repeatedly occupied swathes of territory in former Soviet republics – and despite years of negotiations overseen by European powers, they still haven’t left.
In Moldova, Russian forces are still stationed in the breakaway region of Transnistria, which declared its – largely unrecognised – independence as the USSR fell in ruins around it. And a full fifth of Georgia’s territory is still occupied by Russian troops who routed Tbilisi's forces following the Georgian government’s efforts to violently suppress secessionist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
In both cases, fierce fighting gave way to frozen conflicts as European powers pushed for negotiated ends to the bloodshed.
Anton Shekhovtsov, a visiting professor at the Central European University in Vienna and a researcher on European nationalist movements, spoke with FRANCE 24 about what the US could learn from these long-stalled efforts to bring about lasting peace in the former Soviet Union.
Watch moreThe death of NATO? Europe in crisis over Trump-Putin talks
Looking back at the 2008 crisis in Georgia, we seem to have a couple of competing narratives. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy as the mediator put forward the idea that this was a successful de-escalation, a way of ensuring that Russia’s advance towards Tbilisi was stopped. Whereas other people, especially in the context of what later happened in Ukraine, look back at this moment as almost having given the green light for Putin to extend Russian influence into other former Soviet republics. In your view, what are some of the lessons we should be learning from how that conflict was handled in 2008?
Before 2008 there was another case, and that case is actually older than any of the things that we are discussing today – it’s the case of Transnistria and Moldova. Transnistria is Moldovan territory, and it’s been occupied by the Russians since the beginning of the 90s. And there were several meetings, several conferences throughout the period that followed the occupation of Transnistria, where Russia agreed to withdraw its military forces, its occupation forces from Moldova – and it failed every deadline. The forces are still there.
As to 2008, I understand why Sarkozy was bragging about that being the conclusion of the conflict, but it wasn’t. Even that agreement stipulated that Russia would withdraw its forces, and that did not happen.
What is the Ukrainians' reaction to Trump blaming Ukraine for not ending the war?
03:00
And this is a pattern that we are observing, as I said from the case of Moldova in the 90s. Russia always tries to reach an agreement which it necessarily breaks. It's a pattern, it breaks the promises that it makes because it knows that nobody is going to enforce the agreements, nobody is going to hold Russia accountable for breaking its promises and agreements.
And this is the pattern that we are observing now with Ukraine – what Russia is trying to do at the moment is exactly the same thing as it did with Moldova and Georgia. And there is another pattern – every American administration, probably with the exception of Biden's presidency, has these illusions that it can make a lasting peace with Russia. It failed every time.
After 2008, Obama came up with this idea of a reset in 2009 of the relations between the US and Russia, thinking that it will somehow make Russia more agreeable or more peaceful – it failed. And now, the second Trump presidency is trying to do another reset – they don't call it a reset, but in the end, it is what it is, and the Russians will lie, they will try to fool, to cheat.
You’re painting quite a grim outlook on any attempt at a negotiated end to the conflict. What, in your mind, is the alternative to trying to establish that expectation of a normal relationship that Russia can have not just with its immediate neighbours but with the EU and the US?
This grim picture is based on observations, based on evidence, on what was happening. And I believe that, unfortunately, as long as Vladimir Putin is in power or has any relation to power in Russia, nothing will change with Russia with its relation to Europe, to the US, to Ukraine.
The only alternative today is to support Ukraine as long as possible. If Putin is still there, he will not abandon his maximalist plans regarding Ukraine, which are about the destruction of the Ukrainian state and nation. He has not changed his mind, he just wants to somehow fool the Western observers, especially in the US – I think Europeans are now very difficult to fool, Europeans know what Putin’s Russia is about – at least the mainstream elites know about that.
Andrey Kurkov: 'You can't write fiction when your houses, cities are shelled with missiles, drones'
Trump, he doesn't care about Europe, he doesn't care about Ukraine. He doesn't even care about Russia, in fact, he cares about the media headlines. He's a guy whose efforts are driven by the idea of getting a Nobel Prize for Peace, as Obama did – he cares about media visibility. But it doesn't solve the very complex and deep problems with Ukraine or Russia.
And I think that the only alternative today is to continue supporting Ukraine – all those negotiations, yes, this is all fine – but I just don’t believe that Russia is serious about ending the conflict. It wants the conflict to end with the destruction of Ukraine, or making Ukraine lose its sovereignty. I'm not even talking about territorial Integrity – the restoration of Ukraine's borders in the short or mid-term is unfortunately not going to happen. I mean making Ukraine basically a dysfunctional state – this is the aim. I don't believe Putin, because there is no single piece of evidence from the past that would make Putin a trustworthy politician.
You mentioned this idea that a lot of the European leadership has now lost some of their illusions in the prospect of how far diplomacy will get them with Putin. Do you see that process of disillusionment happening throughout the course of the negotiations around the enforcement of the Minsk agreements? Angela Merkel especially has been quite defensive about her own legacy in terms of seeking a rapprochement between Germany – and the wider European Union – and Putin's Russia.
It's not only about the Minsk agreements. I think these Illusions have been shattered by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and by the atrocities that Russians have been committing in Ukraine during this full-scale invasion. That I think was the real understanding, this is when it came to the European leadership.
I don’t think anyone took the Minsk agreements seriously from any side. These agreements were basically dictated by Russia at gunpoint and this is not something that leads to peace. And for Ukraine the strategy was to somehow try to avoid those agreements because those were not the agreements that Ukraine wanted.
But it had to sign them. That was a forced decision. And I think morally, Ukraine has all the rights to avoid something that was imposed on the country. But now, Minsk III is off the table – Ukraine will not be fooled, and I’m sure Europe will not be fooled by those.
A lot of people reacted with some degree of shock, if not necessarily surprise, at how quickly President Trump reached out directly to President Putin and moved forward with this initial meeting in Riyadh – without a Ukrainian presence. You wrote recently about what you call the minimum requirements for victory for Ukraine that would have to emerge from any sort of negotiated end to this. What, in your mind, is the best framework that would give Ukraine the chance to obtain these minimum requirements?
So these minimum requirements, the first is about Ukraine being heavily armed – this is about giving Ukraine more advanced weapons, and in greater numbers. The second point is EU membership for Ukraine. And the third, the most important one and the most difficult one is, of course, security guarantees for Ukraine that a similar invasion will not happen at least in mid-term – nobody knows what's going to happen in the long term, of course. Security guarantees are the issue that is being most hotly discussed today.
And there are many options. Now, what is being discussed, and I think misleadingly actually, is sending troops to Ukraine – having European boots on the ground. This is all very good, but it’s misleading in the way that if we're talking about peacekeeping forces for Ukraine, we should not start with boots on the ground.
Yes, Ukraine may need additional military personnel but what Ukraine much more urgently needs is to secure its airspace – and for that you don’t really need boots on the ground, you need additional European air forces shooting down the rockets and drones that Russia is regularly sending to Ukraine. I’m not saying that those airspace peacekeeping forces should be functional today. But Europe could start with talking about this.
What happened in Israel when Iran attacked Israel with rockets and drones? You had Western forces just shooting down all those things. And in Ukraine, Russia continues to dominate the airspace. So, instead of trying to scare our domestic audiences about boots on the ground, these discussions would probably be better if they started with securing or pledges to secure Ukraine's airspace.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Trump, he doesn't care about Europe, he doesn't care about Ukraine. He doesn't even care about Russia, in fact, he cares about the media headlines. He's a guy whose efforts are driven by the idea of getting a Nobel Prize for Peace, as Obama did – he cares about media visibility. But it doesn't solve the very complex and deep problems with Ukraine or Russia.
And I think that the only alternative today is to continue supporting Ukraine – all those negotiations, yes, this is all fine – but I just don’t believe that Russia is serious about ending the conflict. It wants the conflict to end with the destruction of Ukraine, or making Ukraine lose its sovereignty. I'm not even talking about territorial Integrity – the restoration of Ukraine's borders in the short or mid-term is unfortunately not going to happen. I mean making Ukraine basically a dysfunctional state – this is the aim. I don't believe Putin, because there is no single piece of evidence from the past that would make Putin a trustworthy politician.
You mentioned this idea that a lot of the European leadership has now lost some of their illusions in the prospect of how far diplomacy will get them with Putin. Do you see that process of disillusionment happening throughout the course of the negotiations around the enforcement of the Minsk agreements? Angela Merkel especially has been quite defensive about her own legacy in terms of seeking a rapprochement between Germany – and the wider European Union – and Putin's Russia.
It's not only about the Minsk agreements. I think these Illusions have been shattered by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and by the atrocities that Russians have been committing in Ukraine during this full-scale invasion. That I think was the real understanding, this is when it came to the European leadership.
I don’t think anyone took the Minsk agreements seriously from any side. These agreements were basically dictated by Russia at gunpoint and this is not something that leads to peace. And for Ukraine the strategy was to somehow try to avoid those agreements because those were not the agreements that Ukraine wanted.
But it had to sign them. That was a forced decision. And I think morally, Ukraine has all the rights to avoid something that was imposed on the country. But now, Minsk III is off the table – Ukraine will not be fooled, and I’m sure Europe will not be fooled by those.
A lot of people reacted with some degree of shock, if not necessarily surprise, at how quickly President Trump reached out directly to President Putin and moved forward with this initial meeting in Riyadh – without a Ukrainian presence. You wrote recently about what you call the minimum requirements for victory for Ukraine that would have to emerge from any sort of negotiated end to this. What, in your mind, is the best framework that would give Ukraine the chance to obtain these minimum requirements?
So these minimum requirements, the first is about Ukraine being heavily armed – this is about giving Ukraine more advanced weapons, and in greater numbers. The second point is EU membership for Ukraine. And the third, the most important one and the most difficult one is, of course, security guarantees for Ukraine that a similar invasion will not happen at least in mid-term – nobody knows what's going to happen in the long term, of course. Security guarantees are the issue that is being most hotly discussed today.
And there are many options. Now, what is being discussed, and I think misleadingly actually, is sending troops to Ukraine – having European boots on the ground. This is all very good, but it’s misleading in the way that if we're talking about peacekeeping forces for Ukraine, we should not start with boots on the ground.
Yes, Ukraine may need additional military personnel but what Ukraine much more urgently needs is to secure its airspace – and for that you don’t really need boots on the ground, you need additional European air forces shooting down the rockets and drones that Russia is regularly sending to Ukraine. I’m not saying that those airspace peacekeeping forces should be functional today. But Europe could start with talking about this.
What happened in Israel when Iran attacked Israel with rockets and drones? You had Western forces just shooting down all those things. And in Ukraine, Russia continues to dominate the airspace. So, instead of trying to scare our domestic audiences about boots on the ground, these discussions would probably be better if they started with securing or pledges to secure Ukraine's airspace.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Since the conflict escalated in 2022, Russia has paused planned military developments along its northern borders with NATO countries, such as more than doubling the 30,000 troops it has stationed along its border with Finland.
“But the concern is, especially if the war in Ukraine stops, Russia will focus very much on rebuilding its military organisation,” says Katarzyna Zysk, professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies.
According to Latvian intelligence, in this scenario Russia would be able to restore its military force enough to pose a significant threat to NATO within five years.
Even while engaged in the conflict, Putin in September ordered that the Russian army be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active service members, which would make it the world’s second largest army, after China.
“Russia wants to achieve the objectives which it has been pursuing systematically since the early 2000s,” Zysk says – namely, expanding Russia’s sphere of influence and undermining the US as a dominant international force, especially in Europe.
“They are very expansive ambitions, and they indicate that Russia is preparing for a large-scale confrontation,” Zysk adds.
Hybrid warfare
That is not to say that Russia is set on military conflict – more that “it is something that you cannot rule out”, Andžāns says.
Hence Latvia’s installation of defence infrastructure including anti-tank obstacles along its borders with Russia and Belarus, and similar measures in Finland, Latvia and Estonia – all EU and NATO members that share land borders with Russia.
In a bid to prevent Russia weaponising the electricity grid against them, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania last week successfully connected to the European power grid, severing Soviet-era links with Russia's network.
Read moreBaltic states join European power grid after cutting ties with Russia's network
But the Baltic Sea, where eight EU and NATO countries share a maritime border with Russia, has already become a tension point, as several undersea telecom and power cables have been severed in recent months.
Moscow has denied deliberately targeting submarine infrastructure, which is frequently damaged by fishing trawlers. But experts, and politicians including Latvia’s president, have accused Russia of using non-military tactics to wage a "hybrid war".
Hybrid war tactics aiming to destabilise societies and spread discord take place in the “gray zone”, below the threshold of armed conflict and outside legal frameworks, making them difficult for Western countries to identify and respond to. But they add to a sense that a form of conflict with Russia has already begun.
“Russia is conducting espionage in the Baltic Sea, both in the technical space and also the virtual space, and it is conducting information operations in Latvia,” Andžāns says.
Read moreRussia accused of meddling in the GPS systems of Baltic Sea countries
In the Latvian capital of Riga, there has been an uptick in pro-Russian vandalism cases, including a Molotov cocktail thrown inside the Latvian Occupation Museum, which documents the Nationalist and Soviet occupations.
The museum’s director said the bomb constituted an attack “on the foundations of the Latvian state, the constitution and the truth”.
“Russia is playing a very long game using this full spectrum of tools,” Zysk says.
Looking to the future, “Russia is certainly going to use political, economic and informational means to influence politics, polarize debates and create chaos”, Zysk adds.
“And I don't see any reason why Russia would not use military means, under certain circumstances. It has proven time and time again that it is willing to do that.”
Fact-checking Trump's statements on Ukraine
05:32TRUTH OR FAKE © FRANCE 24
Issued on: 19/02/2025 -
US President Donald Trump has launched a flurry of controversial claims about the war in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky, while addressing reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Many of these claims were made without providing any evidence. We fact-check these claims in this edition of Truth or Fake.
Issued on: 19/02/2025 -
US President Donald Trump has launched a flurry of controversial claims about the war in Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky, while addressing reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Many of these claims were made without providing any evidence. We fact-check these claims in this edition of Truth or Fake.
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