Over the past 10 days, government officials across Europe have shared that new data indicates an increased risk of the war in Ukraine escalating into a wider European conflict, De Re Militari journalist Ruslan Trad wrote on Facebook.
These comments were initially made by governments and/or state leaders, and were later supported by statements from the intelligence services of France, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, and NATO.
National agencies seem to have different opinions on when the hybrid war waged by Russia will escalate, but all agree that it will happen. The estimated timeframe for the escalation ranges from a few weeks to a few months, until 2031.
Fears of a Russian invasion have also sparked international debates about whether or not this is possible. So far, agencies have mostly shared analyses about hybrid warfare and have hardly speculated about a ground invasion. We have a high degree of certainty that all these reports are based on verified data.
The hybrid warfare waged by Russia has already gained momentum in recent weeks and accelerated even further this month. Ground invasions remain out of the scenario for now. The most explosive action on the ground that we can foresee is a possible attack and takeover of the Suwalki Corridor to connect Kaliningrad with Belarus or the capture of Narva in Estonia.
Before such events, or larger ones, the international community would have noticed an obvious buildup of forces from satellite imagery near the points of tension, which is not happening at the moment. However, in the Russian Federation, Germany and France, hospitals are preparing for military measures, and the Baltic states are making new efforts to organize mass evacuations.
It seems that Russia has serious plans to test NATO's willingness to invoke Article 5, as well as European unity. A full-scale expansion of the war in Ukraine to the rest of Europe is neither in its interest nor within its capabilities. Still, exploiting internal contradictions in Europe (and NATO) to further undermine Western unity seems like an achievable goal for Moscow.