BALTIC ACCESSION TO NATO WOULD EQUAL CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS, SENIOR RUSSIAN ANALYST SAYS.

The Baltic states’ possible admission to NATO would be as provocative to Russia as the 1962 deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba was to the U.S., according to Anton Surikov of Russia’s Defense Studies Institute, writing in Pravda’s weekend issue. Baltic entry into the alliance could trigger "Russian countermeasures analogous to the U.S. ultimatum which took the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe," Surikov warned. (BNS, April 19)

The Institute, associated with pro-Communist and nationalist circles, does contract work for the Defense Ministry and other Russian government agencies. Last year, Surikov emerged as the main author of a draft defense doctrine which envisaged a possible Russian military occupation of the Baltic states to preempt their accession to NATO. Such scenarios are probably designed primarily to foster Western misperceptions of the Baltic states as a potential security liability to NATO.

Lukashenko’s Isolation in Europe Deepens.