Russia is building up forces for a confrontation with NATO, Latvian intel says

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Russia is building up its forces and combat capabilities for a confrontation with NATO, notes the Latvian Constitution Protection Bureau (SAB) in its report for 2024.

In the public part of the report, the SAB pointed out that since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, European countries face a new but increasingly significant threat – sabotage and physical attacks against targets in Europe organized by Russian intelligence and security services.

In 2024, this trend had intensified significantly, and Russian organised sabotage is affecting more and more European countries. The new trend of Russian attacks confirms that Russia is already practically in direct confrontation with western countries, SAB concluded in its report.

According to the bureau, the current goal of the Russian intelligence and security services is to improve their ability to organize sabotage in Europe and is part of Russia’s preparations for a possible military confrontation with NATO in the long term.

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If the war in Ukraine were to be “frozen” and the Russian armed forces no longer suffered significant military losses in active hostilities, they could, for a period of up to five years, implement military augmentation plans in the direction of the north-eastern flank of NATO, including the Baltic, SAB concluded.

In such a case, the Russian military threat to NATO would increase substantially, the bureau stressed.

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The SAB is one of the three Latvian state security institutions that carries out intelligence and counter-intelligence, protection of classified information in accordance with the procedure established by law, as well as carries out and controls the exchange of classified information with international organizations.