Russia Preparing for War with NATO within a Decade, Doubling Troops Near Estonia: Intelligence Report

T he Kremlin is overhauling Russia’s military in anticipation of a “prolonged confrontation” and possible war with NATO within a decade, according to a newly released Estonian intelligence assessment. The overhaul allegedly involves a buildup of Russian forces on Estonia’s border, likely doubling the presence from the 19,000 troops that were there before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian military reorganization also likely encompasses the formation of new armies to fight in Ukraine and a Russian buildup near Finland, in response to the country’s recent accession to NATO, according to the Estonian assessment.

The Estonian foreign-intelligence service released these findings on Tuesday as part of its 2024 annual report.

While the main takeaways about Russia’s military posture are new, they echo the long-standing concerns voiced by Estonian officials and the leaders of other Baltic countries.

In an interview last November, Estonia’s defense minister, Hanno Pevkur, said that if Russian president Vladimir Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine, he will poke or provoke front-line NATO members, such as the Baltic states or Finland, next.

“There is a tendency for someone in the Kremlin to test Article Five, so we have to be ready for that, and this is why we are advocating for more defense spending in NATO,” Pevkur told National Review at the time, on the sidelines of the Halifax Security Forum, a major defense conference.

He added that Russia is already provoking NATO by sending groups of migrants to its members’ borders, conducting cyberattacks, and flying jets near Estonian airspace.

The just-released intelligence report adds more context to those existing concerns and says that Russia has long-term plans to destabilize NATO for years to come.

Launching the report this week, Kaupo Rosin, the head of the Estonian foreign-intelligence service, told reporters that a Russian attack on NATO remains “highly unlikely” in the short term, while Russia still has troops in Ukraine, and that it can be deterred by a buildup of allied forces. “If we are not prepared, the likelihood (of a military Russian attack) would be much higher than without any preparation,” he reportedly added.

The report states that the nature of the Russian military reorganization indicates that Moscow “sees the need to return to a mass army concept to continue the conflict in Ukraine and prepare for a possible conflict with NATO.” It also assesses that the newly organized military will be “technologically inferior” to that of the West but still a threat owing to its size.

Specifically, the Russian ministry of defense will create a new army corps based out of the city of Petrozavodsk, near the Finnish border, and convert existing units in the oblasts of Leningrad and Pskov into divisions. The Estonian intelligence assessment said that those divisions’ capabilities will depend on the success of recruitment and training efforts.

Putin, meanwhile, has publicly denied that he has territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine. “We have no interest in Poland, Latvia, or anywhere else. Why would we do that? We simply don’t have any interest,” the Russian leader said in his recent interview with Tucker Carlson, during which he espoused the revisionist historical narrative that he has advanced to justify the invasion of Ukraine.

But in a move that swiftly cast doubt on that claim, the Kremlin has threatened key Baltic leaders. On Tuesday, Russian officials confirmed a report by Mediazona, an anti-Putin news website, that Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas and other Baltic officials had been added to a “wanted list” maintained by the Russian interior ministry for seeking the demolition of Soviet-era monuments in their countries. “The Kremlin now hopes this move will help to silence me and others — but it won’t,” Kallas wrote on social media.

The new concerns about Russia’s capabilities are unfurling against the backdrop of the ongoing U.S. debate about continuing to send assistance to Kyiv. On Tuesday, the Senate passed a foreign-security-assistance bill that allocates $60 billion to America’s response to the Russian invasion, with most of the funding going toward replenishing U.S. weapons stocks depleted by previous arms shipments to Ukraine.

Last week, former president Donald Trump said he told an unnamed European leader that, if he becomes president again, he would not defend a NATO ally that didn’t spend the requisite 2 percent of GDP on defense, and that he would tell Putin to attack if he wanted. NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg revealed during a press conference on Tuesday that the alliance as a whole spent 2 percent of the members’ combined GDP on defense, with 18 of its 31 members hitting that target individually.