An effect of appeasement: Putin targets Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia

The current US administration claims to want peace in Ukraine, but the steps it is taking are going in a very different direction.

Trump's equidistance between Russia, an aggressor, and Ukraine, an aggressed country
Russia's ultimatums to NATO and to the US: Putin wanted a Europe subservient to Moscow

Trump's complacent attitude emboldens Putin

Until now, Donald Trump's strategy has consisted of pressuring the invaded country and not the invading country, openly placing the blame for a war started by Russia on Ukraine, as the US president himself has stated in several statements. This seems to be the supposed magic recipe that Trump hid during the presidential election campaign, when he stated that he would resolve this war in "24 hours" but without explaining how he would do it.

Obviously, pleasing Putin has not served to end this war, an outcome that was foreseeable for anyone with a minimum of reasoning capacity, but not for the current US president. Trump's complacent attitude towards Russia has only served to embolden Putin, giving him hope of achieving the goals he had set for himself with this invasion, when those goals seemed unattainable due to Russia's evident military failure in Ukraine, with colossal losses for Russia.

Russia wants NATO to withdraw from the Baltic states

The Russian dictator no longer dreams of Trump managing to pressure Ukraine to the point of allowing a Russian victory against that country. As always happens when you try to appease a tyrant, he feels empowered and wants more. It happened in 1938 when the United Kingdom and France gave in to Hitler's wishes by handing over Czechoslovakia to him, and it's happening again now. The Kremlin has made this clear through one of its senior officials.

On Monday, Newsweek reported that "Russia won't end Ukraine War until NATO 'pulls out' of Baltics". The US media outlet refers to statements by Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister, to the official Russian news agency Tass, in a public interview with this title: "Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov: It is impossible to resolve the conflict until NATO withdraws". Newsweek notes that Ryabkov is referring to NATO's presence in the Baltic states: Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Putin's party already proposed taking over those three countries in 2015

These three Baltic states joined NATO on March 29, 2004. Putin is determined to rebuild the old Soviet empire, which included these three countries. Let us recall that in December 2021, the Kremlin sent an ultimatum to the US and NATO through separate documents in which it laid out the terms of a blackmail to the West. Giving in to this blackmail would have created a geopolitical situation in which Europe would be subordinated to Moscow and defenseless against any Russian invasion, especially the eastern flank of the Alliance.

In case there were any doubts about his intentions, on June 8, 2022, Putin's party proposed to stop recognizing Lithuania's independence, repealing the resolution of the USSR State Council that allowed the Lithuanian people to regain their freedom. It wasn't Russia's first such move: Putin's party had already explored legal loopholes to seize the three Baltic states in 2015. Let's remember that Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were invaded by the Soviet army in 1940 as a result of the pact signed by Nazi Germany and the USSR to divide up several Eastern European countries.

The Russian dictator places his hopes in fear and cowardice

Of course, Putin's intention is to force NATO to withdraw from the Baltic states to leave them defenseless against a new Russian invasion. The Russian dictator is taking advantage of Trump's affinity for him to force a situation in which NATO would have to consider going to war with Russia over those three countries. Putin surely hopes that NATO would avoid invoking Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, in which NATO member states affirm that an armed attack against one member country of the Alliance will be considered an attack directed against all of them.

Once again, as he did with Ukraine, the Russian dictator is placing his trust in the fear and cowardice that Russian propagandists promote in the West in order to ensure that NATO does not respond to any hostile action by Russia against one of its members. The question now is: will the Alliance allow itself to be twisted by this thug? I sincerely hope not. If it did, we would risk turning Europe into the fiefdom of a tyrant and war criminal who dreams of having the democratic countries of the West kiss his feet.

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Photo: Wikimedia. Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at the 2017 G-20 meeting in Hamburg, Germany.