The Ukraine war may be entering a dangerous new phase as an embattled Russia appears to be weighing whether to escalate the conflict with limited strikes or military incursions against European NATO countries such as the Baltic states or Poland — betting that the United States wouldn’t intervene.
“I’d say escalatory risk is real, and growing — mostly because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is under growing pressure at home and losing on the battlefield,” said former CIA director William Burns in a message to me Monday. The United States has been sharing warnings about the growing danger with European allies for the past month, officials told me.
We’re watching a demonstration of how wars can leap the bounds of what strategists call “agreed battle” and become global catastrophes. With Russia caught in a meat grinder in eastern Ukraine, suffering more than 30,000 casualties a month to Kyiv’s drones, the danger is that Putin will try a breakout against the NATO alliance that he claims is his real adversary — at a moment when the United States is less engaged than at any time in the alliance’s history.
The worry about a wider war comes as NATO gathers Tuesday in Ankara, Turkey, for its annual summit. European leaders don’t know how President Donald Trump will react to recent Russian provocations. Will he stand with NATO allies and a newly powerful Ukraine to deter Putin’s threats? Or will he distance himself from the conflict? Ukraine’s supporters argue that a Trump retreat would compound global perceptions following the Iran war that the United States is a waning superpower.
The NATO meeting “is an opportunity for the Trump administration to show confidence, power and leadership,” argues William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Kyiv. Ukraine’s recent battlefield successes give Trump leverage to push Moscow for a deal that could end the war, Taylor contends. But there’s no sign that Putin is ready to compromise on major issues.
Some analysts think recent escalation talk is Kremlin saber-rattling. Intelligence officials don’t yet see actual Russian troop movements toward NATO borders or other operational preparations. But officials say they detect signs that Russia is “dusting off” plans for attacks on NATO targets and actively exploring them.
The conflict has already intensified inside Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine’s deep strikes have bombarded Russian oil facilities, including an attack Monday on Russia’s largest refinery at Omsk in western Siberia. Putin admitted in an interview in June that “these strikes on our facilities certainly create problems; that is obvious,” and that they were creating “a certain shortage” of energy.
Russia, meanwhile, has sharply increased its ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine. Kyiv was pounded Monday morning, after a similar barrage last Thursday. Ukrainian officials have described these strikes as some of the heaviest of the war, at a time when Ukraine is running out of Patriot missiles to defend itself.
The new concern is that the war could spread beyond the borders of Russia and Ukraine. NATO allies say they are receiving such warnings from the CIA, amplifying their own reporting about the danger of Russian escalation. For example, a Polish news service called Onet reported June 30 that Polish intelligence sources warned that “Russia may commit an armed provocation against Poland” to test NATO’s response. Possible attack scenarios included real or simulated strikes on Polish electricity transmission stations, or a “hybrid” covert attack near the Poland-Russia border.
“We are aware of the threats, in particular thanks to information from our allies,” responded Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “I do not intend to scare anyone, but the coming months may be critical, especially in the Baltic countries, these fears are palpable.”
The three Baltic countries — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — have been weighing how they would respond to a possible Russian attack. A European official said, for example, that if Estonia detected a Russian GRU intelligence unit inside its borders, it would counterattack. The best deterrence for the Baltic countries, according to NATO sources, is good air and ground surveillance to detect any Russian presence and be able to respond quickly.
Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania, is a potential flash point. Russian troops there could move quickly north or south into NATO territory. But NATO officials say that if they moved troops toward the Kaliningrad border to deter Russia, Putin could use that as a pretext for an attack.
Another pivotal territory is Belarus. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month warned that if Belarus allowed Russia to use its land to stage attacks, Ukraine would strike. Given Kyiv’s recent success with drone and medium-range-missile attacks on Russia, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko appeared to step back. It was a sign of Ukraine’s new ability to project power.
War talk is swirling around Europe. Le Figaro reported July 4 that Latvian intelligence services warned June 22 of “indications suggesting that Russia is preparing military provocations against the Baltic states or Poland.” The French newspaper also cited a June 29 warning from the Dutch Defense Ministry about the danger of a Russian military attack “within the year.”
Britain, too, has faced Russian probing. The British Defense Ministry disclosed Monday that on July 2, its aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales was “approached repeatedly” by a Russian plane that “dropped multiple sonobuoys nearby, and failed to respond on international safety frequencies.” The British carrier scrambled fighter jets.
Putin must carefully weigh his escalation tactics. As one European analyst explained to me, Putin has a choice: Should he keep any action at the “hybrid” level, below an open assault that might trigger a NATO military response? Or should he take a harder punch, in the expectation that Trump wouldn’t respond and NATO’s Article 5 commitment would be exposed as a paper tiger?
As this war moves through its fifth year, it risks leaping any remaining guardrails. Russia is lobbing missiles at increasingly defenseless Ukrainian cities. Russian soldiers are dying at astonishing rates at the front, and more Russian cities and infrastructure are attacked every day. Meanwhile, Europe is in Russia’s gunsights, and European leaders are discussing how to prepare for a wider war.
Where is the de-escalation button? That’s a question that Russian oligarchs are increasingly asking, according to intelligence sources. Herman Gref, the head of the state-controlled Sberbank, warned publicly last week that the Russian economy “simply cannot survive for a prolonged period” under current pressures.
Who could contain this spiraling war and push the two bloodied combatants toward a peace agreement? The answer now as on Inauguration Day is Donald Trump, the would-be peacemaker. At the NATO summit in Ankara, the world will see whether he’s serious about the task.
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