
Latest Articles about Baltics

Latvian Financial Corruption Scandals Open Opportunity for Russian Information Warfare
A series of accusations levied against Latvian banks and officials last week has seriously upended this Baltic State’s banking and financial system. First, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the United States Department of the Treasury announced sanctions against ABLV Bank. The sanctions announcement... MORE

The End of ‘Hide and Seek’: Russian Iskanders Permanently in Kaliningrad
On January 31, Colonel Anatoliy Gorodetskiy, commander of the 152nd Missile Brigade based in Chernyakhovsk (Kaliningrad Oblast), claimed that the infrastructure necessary to host the Iskander-M mobile ballistic missile system (NATO classification SS-26 Stone), with a striking range of 500 kilometres, has been fully prepared... MORE

Kremlin Covertly Promoting Regime Change in Latvia, Riga Security Official Warns
Thanks to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as well as its own efforts, Latvia almost certainly is protected against a Russian military threat of the kind some in Moscow constantly threaten the Baltic States with. Indeed, a new Estonian government report specifically concludes that... MORE

Latvia Focuses on Improving Societal Resilience and Increasing Size of National Guard
In late January 2018, the Ministry of Defense of Latvia (MoD) reported plans to expand the National Guard (Zemessardzes) force to 12,000 by 2027. The largest component of the National Armed Forces and the basis Latvia’s territorial defense, the National Guard is currently made up... MORE

A Year in Review: Baltics Steadily Grow Their Armies
The biggest success for all three Baltic countries—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—last year was the arrival of the multinational battalion groups to the region, thus implementing the decisions reached at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) 2016 summit in Warsaw (see EDM, February 23, 2017). Furthermore,... MORE

Holding On: Russian Military Modernization Versus the Declining Force-to-Space Ratio
Last month, at the Halifax Security Forum, Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz, known for his strong anti-Russia stance, restated his claim that Russia and Belarus’ joint strategic exercise Zapad 2017 was a preparation for an offensive against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (naTemat.pl, November... MORE

Zapad 2017: A Test for the West
The joint strategic Russian-Belarusian military exercise Zapad 2017 (“West” 2017), which took place on September 14–20, is worth studying in detail because of what it reveals about Moscow’s likely military operations in the westward direction in the event of a regional crisis. At the same... MORE

Assessing the Sino-Russian Baltic Sea Drill
From July 21 to July 28, 2017, the Chinese and Russian navies conducted a week of joint drills in the Baltic Sea, the first of their planned two-phase bilateral maritime exercises for 2017. This was the latest iteration of what the Chinese call “Joint Sea”... MORE

Russia’s Energy Monopoly in Central-Eastern Europe Under Siege
The question of where to secure dependable energy supplies for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe was notably broached during United States President Donald Trump’s July visit to Poland. During his meeting with regional leaders in Warsaw, Trump stated that fast-growing US natural gas... MORE

Belarus Gains New Friends, While Lukashenka Retains His Popularity Region-Wide
Minsk is winning over Belarus’s neighbors. “We have stabilized our relations with Belarus… Today, there is no ideological war between our countries,” declared Witold Waszczykowski, the Polish minister of foreign affairs. This statement is impressive, particularly against the backdrop of Poland’s relations with Ukraine, which... MORE