Russia is laying informational groundwork for potential military action against NATO's Baltic members by accusing Lithuania and the alliance of threatening Kaliningrad Oblast, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports, citing two separate Russian government statements issued on 23 April.
The Russian Security Council accused Lithuanian authorities of creating a "hotbed of tension" near the border with Kaliningrad Oblast, according to ISW. The body also charged that Vilnius is militarizing the country under the pretext of a "Russian threat."
On the same day, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told Russian state news outlet RIA Novosti that NATO's Joint Expeditionary Force exercises are practicing scenarios for a naval blockade and the seizure of Kaliningrad Oblast, ISW reports. Grushko accused the alliance of purposefully "intensifying confrontation" with Russia.
ISW: Part of a long-running information operation
ISW assesses that these statements belong to the Kremlin's ongoing cognitive warfare narrative, which falsely frames NATO as the aggressor in response to Russia's military aggression in Ukraine and its long-term posturing. According to ISW, Moscow has been advancing several information operations targeting the Baltic states to set long-term informational conditions that could justify future military action. The Kremlin has been using its control of Kaliningrad Oblast in particular to construct justifications for potential aggression against the Baltic states or Poland under the guise of defending the exclave, ISW reports.
Dutch intelligence: concrete preparations underway
While Russia continues to fight in Ukraine, a conventional war against NATO is "virtually ruled out," the Dutch service writes. At the same time, "Russia is already taking concrete preparatory steps for a possible conflict with NATO," according to the MIVD.
The objective of such a conflict, the service writes, would not be to defeat NATO militarily. Moscow would instead aim to use limited territorial gains to pull the alliance apart politically — "if necessary under the threat of nuclear weapons use."
The MIVD frames the war in Ukraine as part of a long-standing Russian effort to reshape Europe's security architecture and the international legal order. The service states the war has an existential character for the Russian regime, being not only about territory but above all about Russia's position in the world and the future of the Russian nation, culture and what it calls "appropriated traditional values."
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European consensus on the timeline
The MIVD's assessment is consistent with a broader European intelligence consensus. Germany's BND and Bundeswehr have reported that Moscow is preparing for a potential "large-scale conventional war" with NATO by the end of the decade, with Defence Minister Boris Pistorius citing 2028–2029 as a possible timeline. Denmark's Defence Intelligence Service (FE) has warned that Russia could be ready for a regional war against the Baltic states within two years of Ukraine hostilities ending, and a large-scale European war within five. Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Service assesses no attack is intended in 2026 but flags long-term force reconstitution, mass drone integration, and expanded troop deployments along NATO's eastern flank.
Unlike the Cold War, the MIVD adds, the factors that once dampened great-power confrontation — a manageable bipolar order, a functioning arms-control architecture, shared understanding of strategic deterrence, and formal and informal channels for dialogue — are largely absent, creating "a real risk of unintended, and therefore hard-to-control, escalation."
