Baltic nations warn US not to underestimate Russia threat

WASHINGTON: Foreign ministers from the Baltic states, three exposed allies on NATO's eastern flank, visited Washington on Monday to urge Western leaders not to respond naively to Russian threats.

The envoys from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania brought a stark message to meetings with top officials a city already gripped by political infighting and fears of Kremlin intrigue.

Sven Mikser of Estonia, Edgars Rinkevics of Latvia and Linas Linkevicius of Lithuania were careful to thank President Donald Trump's administration for its support for NATO.

But, in an interview with AFP after their joint meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the ministers shared their concerns about Russia'a 'hybrid' threat to the West.



"I think what we have seen in the past four or three years is the community of democratic nations is under the attack," Rinkevics said of Russian interference and interventions.

"The very basis of our democratic institutions are under attack through social media by fake news, and also through the influence of money, and it is very important that we stick together."

The Baltic republics will be able to reinforce this message once more on April 3, when their presidents come to Washington for a White House summit with Trump they hope will send a message to Moscow.
Rinkevics dubbed the threat "unprecedented since the 1930s and 40s" - the period during which the young Baltic republics fell under the control first of Nazi Germany then the Soviet Union.

Since the fall of the Soviets, the three have thrown their lot in with the West, turning away from Moscow's orbit by joining NATO's mutual defense pact and the European Union.

Russia's current president, Vladimir Putin, has never made any secret that he resents this and regards former Soviet republics as belonging in Moscow's zone of influence.

As recently as last week, when asked which single historical event he would most like to reverse, Putin replied: "The collapse of the Soviet Union."

To many, such a statement might seem like electoral bravado designed to play on Russian nationalism three weeks before an election that is expected to confirm Putin in office until 2024.

But the Baltic states cannot afford to be complacent. Already in 2018, Russia seized de facto control of a large chunk of Georgia. In 2014, Moscow annexed the Ukrainian region of Crimea and it still supports pro-Russian rebels in the east of the country.

The Kremlin might think twice about directly confronting a NATO member on the battlefield, but Russia - which has a struggling economy and stagnant population - has other methods of wielding influence.

The visiting foreign ministers know this only too well, their countries having long complained of "hybrid warfare" - military, financial and political manipulation backed by computer hacking and propaganda.
Putin continues to deny any involvement in the fighting in eastern

Ukraine, for example, but US officials regard the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Lugansk as entirely Moscow-invented and controlled entities.

In Syria, Moscow's intervention has been accompanied by the operations of a mysterious Russian mercenary outfit, and in the West, intelligence agencies have warned of repeated attempts to undermine electoral democracy.

In Washington, a special prosecutor has already brought several charges against alleged Russian hackers and online propagandists and is probing allegations that Trump's campaign colluded with Russian agents.

The probe has angered Trump, who denies any collaboration and plays down the idea that Putin may have tried to swing the 2016 vote his way, as the White House staggers from one scandalous revelation to another.

Tillerson's State Department has so far failed to draw up a list of targets for new sanctions on Russia despite Congress having passed a law authorizing tough new measures.

This week, it emerged that the department has yet to receive tens of millions of dollars that Congress wanted transferred from the defense budget to begin an anti-Russian counter-propaganda effort.

Trump has complained that the political focus on the scandal has undermined any effort he might have made to patch up ties with Putin and to work with Russia to fight terrorism and to isolate North Korea.

For the ministers, however, it would be a mistake to ignore one threat to deal with another, when cyberspace and the globalized economy and media marketplace are becoming one hybrid battlefield.

"Security these days is increasingly indivisible," said Estonian envoy Mikser. "There's no clear division between internal and external security, and also geographically. Security is becoming globalized."
The visiting trio urged Washington to look the threat to their own and to European institutions in the face.

"We're always suggesting to our colleagues in the United States and Europe to be more realistic, not to be naive. Dialogue is important as long as it doesn't serve as a smokescreen to do nothing," Linkevicius said.



The Lithuanian envoy noted Putin's recent belligerent speech in which he boasted that Russia had developed a new generation of nuclear arms to bypass missile defenses.

"That type of dialogue is not acceptable. And that's military power, it's not dialogue, it's something else," Linkevicius argued.

All three ministers agreed that they would like to see US troops based more permanently in the Baltics, alongside their British, Canadian and German allies.

"We really should act, and do this visibly with tangible means," the Lithuanian said.

"NATO will never escalate. NATO will never be aggressive, but nobody should be in any doubt that we will do whatever necessary to protect our territories."