Russian invasion fears horror after drones spotted over Baltic nations | World | News
Putin may launch invasion to combat “suppression” of Russian speakers in Baltic states (Image: Getty)
Fears are growing that Russia will attack the Baltic countries after drones were detected over Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
The three countries, which share a border with Russia, are now turning to their southern neighbor Ukraine for help building bomb shelters and developing strategies against drone attacks.
Increased drone sightings in the Baltic countries in recent weeks have intensified fears of Russian invasion and increased political tensions. This follows reports that Trump allegedly tried to access US nuclear launch codes before being stopped by an aide.
Last week, a NATO warplane shot down an unmanned aircraft over Estonia for the first time. Lithuania’s president and prime minister took shelter in underground bunkers during a separate attack.
Following these events, officials from the three Baltic states contacted Ukrainian defense manufacturers and civil protection experts to discuss the supply of bomb shelters, according to the head of one of Ukraine’s leading defense industry organizations, POLITICO reported.
“These are not very large countries. They are trying to find the best solutions to keep their people safe and sound against Russian aggression, if it happens,” Ihor Fedirko, CEO of the Ukrainian Defense Industry Council, said at an event in Prague, according to POLITICO.
He added that his organization was “ready to help them.” Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of major Ukrainian steel producer Metinvest, confirmed that his company is also in talks with the Baltic governments regarding the construction of shelters.
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Russia on Wednesday morning signaled a chilling new phase of pressure targeting the Baltic states, according to a striking graphic published by a former Ukrainian interior minister.
Anton Gerashchenko announced that Moscow has declared its intention to take the “suppression of the rights of Russian speakers” in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to the International Court of Justice.
But he warned that in reality the move was “another element in a systematic effort to create a framework of legitimacy for possible intervention.”
Gerashchenko wrote about That’s why the Kremlin allegedly had to go to court.”
He argued that this rationale, which involved “exhausting all available avenues”, was not a true legal strategy but rather “the elaboration of a narrative”; In this way, any refusal to submit to Russia’s demands will be treated as evidence of “Western bias” and, accordingly, “justification for extrajudicial actions.”
“The plan is not new,” Gerashchenko wrote. “Before the 2008 war in Georgia, Russia distributed passports to residents of Abkhazia and South Ossetia for years, talking about the ‘Ossetian genocide’ and then using the claim of ‘protecting Russian citizens’ as the official justification for the invasion.”
Gerashchenko published a graphic detailing how Russia’s attack on the Baltics could work (Image: X)
According to Gerashchenko, immediately after this conflict, then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed amendments to the Russian Defense Law allowing the deployment of military forces abroad to protect Russian citizens.
“The Kremlin then moved the concept of ‘protecting citizens’ from propaganda into official law,” he said. The same pattern emerged with the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and once again with Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022; Gerashchenko argued that both were based on the same narratives: “protecting Russians, neo-Nazism and genocide.”
“This framework itself is now being used to justify a potential invasion of the Baltic states.”
However, Putin faces a significant obstacle: the Baltic states are all members of both the EU and NATO, which closes the door to the passportization strategy pursued by Moscow. Russia can now only appeal to those it considers its “citizens” and “Russian speakers” rather than “Russian citizens”.
However, Gerashchenko warned, “The weakness of the legal basis does not stop Russia; it simply shifts the focus from legal consequences to propaganda effect.”
Russia is increasing drone attacks. This image shows the aftermath of the attack in Ukraine (Image: Getty)
“NATO membership remains the main deterrent factor for Moscow,” he wrote. “The main aim of the campaign is therefore to create a ‘grey zone’ in the perception of the conflict and to create an international record of ‘an unresolved issue regarding the rights of Russians.’
“This goal becomes especially important given the Trump administration’s April statements regarding a possible US withdrawal from NATO; such uncertainty creates precisely the conditions under which the Kremlin’s human rights rhetoric will be operationally useful.”
He concluded by stating that the campaign targeting the Baltic states was not a “diplomatic event” but rather “a methodical construction of an infrastructure within which any future escalation could be presented not as an attack but as ‘protection by force'”.
This comes after reports that Trump exploded with anger at one of his most loyal cabinet members after a stunning mistake.
