Yves here. Even though most geopolitically oriented eyes are focused on Ukraine, the related peace talks, and the dangerously simmering situation in the Middle East, particularly serious US noises about mixing it up with Iran, there are secondary flash points related to these conflicts that can add heat to these fires. One general category that most readers know well is the way the weak players, the EU ex Hungary and Slovakia, and particularly the UK and the Baltic states, are determined to throw a spanner into a possible settlement of the Ukraine conflict.
This post reinforces a point yours truly has made repeatedly: Putin can win the war but still lose the peace. The UK and his friends are determined to make that happen if they can. Recall that Putin’s aim is not simply to stop the fighting, but to create “a new European security architecture”. The next best would be to establish a durable acceptance by the key players in Europe of the resolution.
The problem here is Europeans have been fed decades of swill about how monstrous Russians and Putin are, and that propagandizing has become more intense over the course of the war. Additionally, the Baltic states are stuck in a time warp, regarding modern Russia as no different than the now long dead Soviet Union.
Professor John Mearsheimer has warned that there won’t be a clean and well-accepted outcome to this war, even assuming a US-Russia “deal”. He identified multiple hot spots settlement refusniks could keep stoking, from Transnistria to Kaliningrad to one of areas discussed below, the Baltics. Recall also that NATO has nuclear capable missiles installed in Romania and Poland. Unless the latter systems are removed, Russia is still under threat, albeit not as acute as with a belligerent and once well-armed NATO proxy on its doorstep. All it takes is a regime change in DC for the US to go on a hostile footing again. With Trump on track to tank the economy, and Vance having the worst poll ratings of any VP at this point in his tenure, Vance 2028 does not look like a great bet, even allowing for the abject awfulness of the Dem bench. Of course, I charitably assuming the US actually does hold elections then.
By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO, which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website
Putin’s senior aide Nikolai Patrushev, who ran the FSB for nearly a decade (1999-2008) before chairing the Security Council for over 15 years till recently (2008-2024), shared some updates about the Baltic and Arctic fronts of the New Cold War in a recent interview with Russia’s National Defense magazine. He began by blaming the Brits for orchestrating Baltic tensions in order to disrupt the incipient Russian-US normalization process and associated talks on Ukraine.
In connection with that, he also warned that some NATO members (presumably led by the British) are practicing cyberattacks against Russian ships’ navigation equipment and suggested that they might have been responsible for recent claims of sabotage in the Baltic, which prompted a larger naval presence. This same expanded presence poses a threat to Russia’s interests and could manifest itself through terrorist attacks against its underwater pipelines, tankers, and dry cargo ships.
Russia plans to defend against this through unmanned underwater systems and strengthening its Baltic Fleet. As for one of the worst-case conventional threats, that of Finland and Estonia teaming up to blockade Russia inside the Gulf of Finland, Patrushev expressed confidence that his country could overcome that plot and punish the aggressors. This segued the conversation into a discussion about Finland, which Patrushev said has a friendly population, unlike its government.
He mentioned how the authorities there distort history to avoid talking about the goal of “Greater Finland”, which took the form of occupying Northwestern Russia, placing its inhabitants into concentration camps, and exterminating the Slavs there. Just like Finland was used by the Nazis as a springboard for aggression against the USSR, so too did Patrushev warn that plans might be afoot for NATO to use it as a springboard potential aggression against Russia.
He then said a few words about how the Arctic is opening up as a new front of competition, mostly due to its resources, but reaffirmed that Russia wants peace and cooperation there instead of rivalry. The Northern Sea Route (NSR), which commemorates its 500th-year conceptualization this year, can help bring that about. Russia will continue developing regional infrastructure and building ice-class vessels for facilitating transit through these waters year-round. It was on that note that the interview ended.
Reviewing Patrushev’s briefing, the first part about blaming the Brits for tensions in the Baltic aligns with what Russia’s Foreign Spy Service (SVR) recently claimed about how the UK is trying to sabotage Trump’s envisaged “NewDétente”. It might therefore very well be that they’re attempting to open up this front for that purpose, first through unconventional acts of aggression like “plausibly deniable” terrorist attacks and then possibly escalating to a joint Finnish-Estonian blockade of the Gulf of Finland.
Exposing these plots and expressing confidence in Russia’s ability to overcome them were meant to respectively ensure that the Trump Administration is aware of what the UK is doing and to deter the UK’s regional proxies from going along with this since the US and even the UK might hang them out to dry. Patrushev’s words about Finland were important too in the sense of reminding everyone that governments don’t always reflect the will of the people on the foreign policy front.
At the same time, however, everyone should also be aware of the Finnish government’s historical distortions and the threat that its reckless foreign policy poses to its own people. Wrapping everything up, Patrushev pointed to the Arctic’s importance in Russia’s future planning, and his reaffirmation of its peaceful intentions could be interpreted as a willingness to partner with the US there like their representatives discussed last month in Riyadh. The NSR can also become a vector for cooperation too.
Putting everything together, the Arctic front of the New Cold War is thawing a lot quicker than the Baltic one since the first is where the US could prospectively cooperate with Russia while the second is where the UK could try to provoke a crisis with Russia, but it remains to be seen whether any of this will unfold. Russian-US cooperation in the Arctic is likely conditional on a ceasefire in Ukraine whereas a Russian-NATO conflict in the Baltic orchestrated by the Brits is conditional on them misleading the US about this.
Putin’s interest in a lasting political solution to the Ukrainian Conflict bodes well for the Arctic scenario just like Trump’s criticism of NATO bodes ill for the Baltic one so both ultimately come down to their will. They’re the two most powerful people on the planet so their ties will greatly determine what comes next on those fronts and every other one too. It’s precisely for this reason why the British want to ruin their relations, but after Patrushev just exposed their Baltic plot, that’s a lot less likely to succeed than before.
Re UK still meddling everywhere–instead of Greenland perhaps Trump should set his sights on taking over that other island next to the soon to be renamed American Channel. Then the Donald can do for MI6 what he’s been doing for DC and finally get the historic cousins on the same page. Britain’s economy will be revived by a new surge in tourism and Disney can take over and run Windsor and the other palaces on a cash basis. Tasteful rides will be included for the kids and the Brits have already tested the waters with their Ferris Wheel on the Thames.
Jealous Canada will then join the UK by becoming the 52nd state. Of course the health care systems of our new acquisitions will also need to be put on a cash basis but England now moving that way as well? Just some thoughts.
Thank you, C.
Your fellow Carolinians, the Drayton family of Magnolia, come from my home county and its neighbour across the Ouse. The Washington family came from nearby Sulgrave. The Draytons may welcome unity.
The Canadian turned British publisher Conrad Black has long advocated the UK and Canada join the US.
Thanks Colonel. A former textile mill not far from me–now lofts–is named after Drayton. There was some controversy when a new school also took the name since he had been a slave owner.
And pardon the ribbing. I loved England when I visited years ago but do have my doubts about that Ferris wheel.
Thank you.
The Drayton and Washington families come from the same area as the Spencers, including the Spencer-Churchill branch.
The Washingtons and Spencers made money in sheep farming in the south Midlands and Cotswolds. Both were royalist and were excluded from local power by the Cromwellians after the civil war(s) ended in 1649. Colonel John Washington decided to emigrate to Virginia some years later. I don’t know when the Draytons left.
There are localities named after the Draytons in north Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire.
The English ancestors of Uschi von der Leyen come from that area, too, and were gentry.
If the US were to take the UK, they’d get Canada for free. I recently went to the Canadian parliament’s website and learned that the UK monarch is still their military commander-in-chief, still has to give final approval to their laws (through their rep the governor-general) and can dissolve parliament at will. Also I believe Australia is in a similar situation. So if the US overtly took over the Uk they’d get 3 for the price of 1!
Heh. Maybe Trump can give them the London Bridge back in exchange for the takeover, just to be sporting. They won’t be needing it in AZ anyway once the last of the water dries up.
Even when this war is over I could easily see countries like the UK and the Baltic States organizing Ukrainians into sabotage and assassination teams to try to create as much chaos for the Russians as they can both in the new Oblasts and Russia itself. In fact they have already been doing this for some time now. There won’t be any real strategic aim to this post-war campaign to doing all this but it will be more a case of spite out of losing the war in the Ukraine. I remain concerned more for the UK as I think that the UK government will literally crash that country’s economy in service of the Ukraine and this has been true of the past several Prime Ministers as well. If they can wreck any peace deal that will involve the whole European continent, then they will do it no matter what the cost will be for them. What a time to be alive in.
I wonder if the UK economy crashing is what finally brings about world peace. Especially given people are absolutely fed up with the govenrment. The pitchforks are out, if someone were to try to pull another Thatcher right now…
I think it should be Slovakia instead of Slovenia in the first paragraph.
Grr, thanks, fixing…
“Putin’s interest in a lasting political solution to the Ukrainian Conflict bodes well for the Arctic scenario just like Trump’s criticism of NATO bodes ill for the Baltic one so both ultimately come down to their will.” A bit too much confidence in the (extremely?) transitory Trump Team? What becomes of US policy towards Russia in 2028? Both American parties are still ferral towards Russia (the red team is just hiding until Trump is gone). And have you read of Ukraine/Zelenky’s personsl attacks against Wittcoff and Trump? Rachel Maddow must be jealous. Full frontal and possibly effective with Dem PMC class and the temporarily suppressed Blob. Why I would not entirely discount the possibility of Zelensky for US President in 2028 on Democratic ticket if the birth issue can be addressed (ignore court and administrative rulings?).
What becomes of US policy towards Russia in 2028? Never mind that. What becomes of US policy towards Russia tommorow? The mind of the “The Leader of the Free World” is more affected by the way the wind is blowing than his hair.
At this point I’m not taking all of us still being here in 2028 for granted. The Democratic deep state was clearly moving us toward World War III by design, but the Trumpified Republicans may just stumble into it through the derangement of its leader and his billionaire backers. We may finally pay the price of electing TV personalities and lifelong political hacks with no experience of the real world, people who are functional idiots no matter what their IQs may say. A lot can happen before 2028, most of it bad, so the BRICS crowd will have to work overtime to get the best deal they can while keeping the terminally sick empire from going completely off the rails.
Andrew Korybko, with his Polish ancestry and US upbringing laps too much at the pedestal of US hegemony.
IMO, it is not the British, but the English – MI6, the City et al.
Karl
Decolonize Britain?
It’s really not the English, it’s the Normans.
It is not really the Normans, it’s the Romans…
I think that it is important to consider geography and demographics. I find this article interesting, but I also see its colors as being a tad too bright.
First, in Scandinavia and the Baltic States, Sweden is the giant — in area and population, a towering 10 million inhabitants. Finland is around 5 million. Lithuania is at a scant 3 million, if that, having been in free fall for a while. The population of Latvia is what? It kept dropping and dropping. About 1.5 million? For a while it looked as though the extreme free-market policies of the Latvian government had the intent of bringing the population down to about 500,000. Similarly, Estonia, which has produced Kaja Kallas, who will lead the blockade of the the Gulf of Finland with Estonia’s navy of four ships and a threatening set of signal flags.
So: These countries are in exceedingly weak positions. It is history. Consequently, they should learn to negotiate with Russia as well as to get around Russian-caused problems. Does Slovenia spend time threatening Italy? Is Jamaica in a panic and preparing to invade the U S of A?
Which means: NATO truly cannot protect them if they provoke the Russians, even if NATO sends in the poltroonish Annalena Baerback to smart-mouth to Foreign Minister Lavrov.
Which means: They are being led down the proverbial garden path by the U.K. and Poland, which will be only too happy to sacrifice Riga if a flattened Riga enhances Polish and / or English interests. And I use the word English deliberately.
With regard to Finnish intemperance, I think that the portrayal is too colorful. The Finns aren’t prone to stupid gestures and sudden flareups. I do recommend Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte, who was an Italian journalist who covered the end of WWII from the Axis side. His portrait of the Finns is sympathetic, in part because they weren’t convinced fascists. And he notes that they weren’t hotheads.
Unfortunately, in this era of postmodernist absurdity and rampant greed, small countries get ruined so that the looting can go on. I am thinking of Lebanon.
One should be reading Russian special interest outlets like above quoted Oborona.ru every day.
Bookmarked. These days I regularly check TASS. To lazy I am to do a comprehensive list of sources but this is welcome.
“Recall also that NATO has nuclear capable missiles installed in Romania and Poland. ”
Curious as to what missiles these are?
“Missile installations” is probably more accurate than “missiles.” The allegedly anti-missile installations of the Aegis Ashore installations are compatible with Tomahawks without modifications, as I understand it. No one knows what missiles are actually installed there at the moment, I think.