Saks dismisses WSJ speculation of Russian NATO attack

Security expert Rainer Saks has dismissed claims published by The Wall Street Journal that Russia could launch a limited attack against NATO as exaggerated speculation, ERR reported. He said Russia, exhausted by the war in Ukraine, lacks the resources needed to start a new military conflict.

The Wall Street Journal cited an intelligence assessment saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin could test NATO in the coming years by attacking a member of the alliance if Russia becomes stuck in its attempt to conquer Ukraine. The article referred to possible cyberattacks and a limited ground invasion.

Saks said the report was based on anonymous sources and fragments, while official comments were either unavailable or had been refused. He described it as a broad text rather than a specific intelligence assessment.

General assessments that Russia “could do something” do not indicate that Moscow is actually planning an attack, Saks said. He added that publishing such assessments was beneficial to Russia as long as it had no plans to act.

Saks also called the proposed timeframe, from this autumn to 2029, “completely absurd” and said Russia was certainly not making such plans. He said it was impossible to determine whether the information had been leaked by the US government or reflected the initiative of an individual intelligence official.

The report covered almost the entire range of theoretically possible actions, from cyberattacks to a limited military incursion, Saks said. He therefore did not consider it a serious warning requiring rapid countermeasures.

Russia has been carrying out cyberattacks against NATO member states continuously since at least 2005 or 2006, Saks said. He added that NATO countries had so far failed to respond adequately, while several European countries had tried to engage Russia and expand energy cooperation before the invasion of Ukraine.

Similar situations to those described in the intelligence report had also occurred 15 to 20 years ago, he said, meaning that there was nothing new in the assessment.

Saks said publishing the report currently benefited Russia because Moscow had not directly threatened NATO countries with military action. The article created a context that could allow Russia to manipulate information even more than before. He described the Wall Street Journal article as “extremely foolish.”

The article also referred to drones and missiles that had landed in Romania and Poland as signs that Russia might be testing NATO’s response. However, the two countries themselves have said they did not regard the incidents as deliberate Russian actions, describing them instead as accidental or technical incidents.

Saks said the ongoing fighting in Ukraine created a heightened risk because Ukrainian drones could enter or be shot down over the territory of allied countries. He added that he could not say whether the official comments differed substantially from what was actually happening.