NATO officials have rejected claims that Moscow is preparing an immediate military aggression against the Baltic states, the British newspaper The Times reports.
Senior military sources from the Alliance indicate that Russian armed forces are currently overstretched due to the conflict in Ukraine and the Kremlin is fully aware that any attack on a member country would trigger an immediate and devastating collective response.
According to the sources, Russia remains successfully deterred by the actions taken to strengthen its eastern flank, despite the increasing attempts at hybrid attacks, disinformation and sabotage aimed at weakening Western support for Kiev.
However, the newspaper's analysis reveals a serious discrepancy between confidential military assessments and the rhetoric of political leaders in Europe. The publication notes that a number of Western governments are consciously using the hypothetical Russian threat to justify to their societies a drastic increase in military spending.
The topic became particularly relevant after the summit in Ankara, where, under pressure from Washington, member states agreed to strive for a new higher threshold for defense spending of 5% of gross domestic product by 2035.
At the moment, Poland and the three Baltic republics are devoting the largest percentage of their economies to rearmament, while a number of large Western European countries are still having difficulty covering even the old minimum of 2% of GDP.