An American think tank is sounding the alarm. The Institute for the Study of War is concerned about the situation in eastern Europe after the appearance of armed and masked Russian soldiers on Thursday, October 9, on the Estonian border. Moscow “has entered phase zero of its campaign of preparation for a possible future war with NATO”, assures the neoconservative think tank, cited by CNews.
After hearing of the presence of Russian forces on its borders, theEstonia decided to partially close the section of road which runs along the border with Russia. The head of the Southern Prefecture of the Estonian Police and Border Guard, Meelis Saarepuu, said that a patch of road of about one kilometer was temporarily inaccessible.
Russian soldiers ‘operate more assertively than before’
The uniform of the soldiers seen was different from that of the soldiers usually occupying the functions of border guards. Russia, for its part, assured that these individuals were carrying out a routine operation. The Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs noted that Russian soldiers “operated in a more assertive and visible manner than before”.
For the Institute for the Study of War, the presence of these Russian soldiers is also worrying because the last concentration of these soldiers recorded near a border preceded the Russian offensive in Crimea by a few days, in 2014. They are called “polite people” by the Russian press and bring together military forces forming a mix of special operations forces agents, other units and paratroopers.
Three years after the launch of the war of invasion of Ukraine, a number of Western countries accuse Russia of carrying out hostile actions against them, or even of preparing for an armed conflict with a European member of NATO. Recently, the German secret services stated that“in Moscow, we believe that we have realistic chances of extending its zone of influence towards the west » and that, “To achieve this objective, Russia will not hesitate, if necessary, to enter into direct military conflict with NATO.” Likewise, a note from the Danish secret services, made public last February, warns of the possibility of a “large-scale war” in Europe within five years. The Russian authorities, for their part, deny any desire for conflict with NATO and accuse the Europeans of fueling a warlike dynamic by increasing their defense budget.
