NATO allies accuse Russia of supporting terrorist attacks in their countries

According to two NATO foreign ministers, Russian President Vladimir Putin is planning “terrorist attacks” against NATO countries, citing a series of arson attacks and other acts of violence.

“It is clearly a terrorist attack on a NATO country sponsored by a hostile neighbour,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on Wednesday on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington DC. “The problem is that when you say that, you have to immediately say what you are going to do about it. … I would like to remind you that Article 5 was only used because of a terrorist attack.”

Landsbergis made this assessment in light of a series of arson attacks in Poland and Lithuania, two NATO member states whose border has long been considered one of the alliance’s most vulnerable regions. Similarly, in March, an aide to the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny was attacked by an assailant armed with a hammer.

“I’m not sure if you can even call it hybrid events or gray zone events anymore,” Landsbergis said, referring to the way Western leaders typically categorize such unconventional Russian operations.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski also believes that Russia’s recent operations should be classified as terrorist attacks against NATO.

“It’s not just arson,” Sikorski said. “They’re sending death squads to kill people. This is definitely terrorism.”

It is expected that the transatlantic alliance will agree on a “national mechanism that brings together military and civilian planning,” a senior NATO official told reporters this week, to get these “hybrid attacks” under control.

Landsbergis said he was “glad” that allies were now officially addressing the issue, but argued that failure to punish such operations would encourage Putin to engage in more open forms of aggression.

“Putin will escalate the situation because every time we remain silent, he sees it as weakness and pushes further,” he said.

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There is an obvious way for the Lithuanian president to retaliate without entering into direct conflict with Russia: he must give the green light to the Ukrainian armed forces, since they are largely prohibited from using Western weapons in Russia.

“Now we have a country that is willing to manage the escalation for us,” he said. “They are effectively asking us here in Washington today to go deeper into Russian territory. ‘We will manage your escalation for you.’ … If they feel free to attack us in any way they can, then we will let the Ukrainians attack them.”