Oddly enough, it is the war in Ukraine that has dragged on into its third year and failures on the Ukrainian front that can force Putin’s Russia to attack the Baltic countries as well. Russia has long shown that its leadership is completely inadequate and its actions are not particularly amenable to rational logic. These NATO countries are very vulnerable from a geographical point of view to Russia. It will be very difficult for NATO countries to deploy their forces and it will take a very long time. Russia may take such a reckless step to force Europe to negotiate peace with it in Ukraine on its terms.

On the other hand, Russia is very interested in the Suwalki corridor, which is located between Poland and Lithuania and connects Belarus with the Kaliningrad region of Russia. This became very relevant when Sweden and Finland recently became new NATO members and the Baltic Sea effectively became an internal sea of NATO countries. Therefore, the seizure of the Suwalki corridor recently became the subject of conversation between Putin and Lukashenko at their last meeting in Moscow.