Russian attack on NATO territory is possible in near future - diplomat Bryza

He said this in an interview with Anton Borkovskyi, host of the Studio West program on Espreso TV.

"All the way through the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration has been good on providing rhetorical support and slow on providing military support, always delivering the next type of weaponry that Ukraine desperately needs later than it should be delivered. That's going to go on for a while. I don't foresee Russia attacking NATO territory in Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania in the near term. Russia is stuck in its trenches in Ukraine. Ukraine has pushed back the Black Sea Fleet out of Ukrainian territory. And Putin knows that if he attacks NATO territory, he's going to be at war with NATO and he does not want that," Bryza said.

According to him, it is unlikely that the Biden administration is having a special debate about helping Ukraine. 

"The Biden administration wants to provide the additional 60 billion dollars worth of aid to Ukraine and the vast majority of members of Congress, as I've told you before, want that aid to come to Ukraine. There's just a small group of radical far-right-wing Republicans that are using Biden's desire to provide that aid to Ukraine to demand other things from Biden most notably a new policy on protecting the US Mexican border," the former US Secretary of State noted.

He recalled the scenarios according to which, as in the case of Crimea, Russia could send troops there, concealing its involvement.

"But when I used to run a think tank in Tallinn, Estonia after Russia invaded Ukraine the last time in 2014, we were worried and we were studying possible scenarios according to which, like in the case of Crimea, Russia could send in some deniable troops. Let's say little green men again, saying it's not Russian troops. Those troops would occupy some insignificant administrative centers and then Putin would say ah. These are Russian troops. We have captured NATO territory. And do you want to go to nuclear war to try to free these unimportant buildings? That's something that worries me or something below the threshold of an article 5 response, whereby Russia could attack NATO territory and that would discredit NATO forever," Bryza added.

• German media reported that NATO plans to conduct large-scale exercises under the scenario of a Russian attack on the Alliance.
• Rob Bauer, chairman of NATO's military committee, is convinced that civilians in the West should prepare for a comprehensive war with Russia.
• On January 19, the Centre for Strategic Communications explained why NATO is organising the largest exercise since the end of the Cold War.
• Experts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that Russia is trying to continue to present the large-scale NATO exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 as provocative in the information space.
• Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said that his country is not afraid of a Russian invasion, but that all EU and NATO states should be prepared for all possible scenarios.