The world "is once again on the brink of the abyss" and there are legitimate concerns that a third world war could break out, but it is "absolutely stupid" to think that Russia "is preparing to attack the Baltic countries" .
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko , one of Putin's closest allies, said this.
Yet, after the offensive in Ukraine, the scenario of a possible attack by Moscow on a NATO country in Northern Europe - a Baltic or Scandinavian nation - has been evoked in recent weeks by many leaders, insiders and analysts.
The director of Sapo, the Swedish secret service that works on counter-espionage and counter-terrorism, Charlotte von Essen , for example, called a press conference in which she stated that " the security situation in the country is serious and the biggest threat comes from Russia" .
“This situation – continued von Essen – has progressively worsened since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and the terrorist threat level, which was raised to four out of five points in August, will not be lowered anytime soon,” he said. stated.
In recent days it was the Lithuanian Defense Minister, Arvydas Anusauskas, who urged the Atlantic Alliance to do more to protect Northern European countries.
«Our absolute priority is the implementation of regional plans. There is also a great need to strengthen integrated anti-aircraft and missile defenses and to bring the rotational defense model to fruition", he said at the end of the meeting of defense ministers of NATO countries, held in Brussels.
Anusauskas also underlined that the strengthening of the Atlantic Alliance requires a greater financial commitment from individual member countries. And similar observations were expressed by the Estonian Defense Minister, Hanno Pevkur , according to whom the war waged by Russia against Ukraine had the merit of making the Alliance countries aware of the need to . “We must have all the necessary units, including equipment, weapons systems, ammunition and logistics both to defend ourselves and to send a clear message to Russia: there is no point in even considering attacking NATO,” Pevkur said. .
