Anders Fogh Rasmussen: Putin can attack Baltic States to test Nato's resolve

The president of Russia can attack the Baltic States to test whether Nato would mobilise.

Former Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said it in an interview with The Telegraph, Liga.net reports.

He thinks the Kremlin's true goal is to shatter Nato solidarity and reassert Russian dominance over Eastern Europe.

“This is not about Ukraine. Putin wants to restore Russia to its former position as a great power. There is a high probability that he will intervene in the Baltics to test Nato’s Article 5,” Rasmussen said, meaning the “attack on one, attack on all” article.

“Putin knows that if he crosses the red line and attacks a Nato ally, he will be defeated. Let us be quite clear about that. But he is a specialist in hybrid warfare,” the Alliance's former secretary general noted.

Rasmussen thinks that the Kremlin can generate a murky conflict in Estonia or Latvia where there are large Russian minorities, using arms-length action or “little green men” without insignia to disguise any intervention.

“Article 5 states that a military attack on any one Nato country is an attack on all of them, triggering collective mobilization. It has been invoked just once in the 66-year history of the alliance, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York,” the newspaper writes.

Rasmussen says that Putin's tactic is to create a frozen conflict in the Donbass rather than trying to conquer and hold large parts of the country.