Vitaly Portnikov: Russia Is Preparing To Strike The Baltic States

Putin wants to test the solidarity of NATO allies.

Ukrainian journalist and political analyst Vitaly Portnikov outlined the objectives of the CIA director’s visit to Moscow and the Russian leadership’s reaction to it. In a commentary posted on YouTube, he explained why Moscow is interested in “escalating” the war.

“Russia is preparing to strike the Baltic states to demonstrate its ability to achieve swift victories and to test the solidarity of its NATO allies,” Portnikov said. — This conclusion can be drawn from a report by Politico, which states that the main purpose of the visit by the director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency John Ratcliffe to the Russian capital was to warn Moscow of the consequences of such a strike.

Thus, Ratcliffe’s mission is almost a mirror image of the trip taken by his predecessor as CIA director, William Burns, who visited Moscow in 2021 to warn President Putin of the consequences of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. As is well known, the Russian dictator—who did not even meet with the then-CIA director and spoke with him only by telephone—paid no attention whatsoever to these warnings from the U.S. In my opinion, this is exactly what will happen with the new CIA warnings.

Putin may not believe that U.S. President Donald Trump is prepared to have his country intervene in a European war and risk a nuclear conflict with the Russian Federation. At the very least, we do not know what Ratcliffe’s arguments were, but they were unlikely to have differed significantly from Burns’s.
The Baltic states differ from Ukraine primarily in that they are members of NATO.

And so, if they turn to their allies regarding the invocation of Article 5, the United States and other member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must come to their aid. Whether this aligns with Donald Trump’s views on foreign policy and the capabilities of the United States following the war in the Middle East is a big question. And Putin may be tempted to test how far he can go, not only on Ukrainian territory but also on European territory.”

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