How Likely Is It That Russia’s Next Special Operation Will Be Against Latvia?

What’s much more probable is kinetic retaliation against reported Ukrainian drone teams there.

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warned that their country’s armed forces are ready to retaliate against the Ukrainian drone teams that they claim have already deployed to Latvia ahead of “new terrorist strikes against Russia’s rear regions.” SVR explained that Zelensky wants to demonstrate his own armed forces’ “ability to damage the Russian economy”, which Latvia (whose government just fell due to a scandal caused by Ukrainian drones transiting its airspace) agreed to for Russophobic reasons.

To elaborate on the context, Ukraine has been accused by some Russian sources of using Baltic airspace (after flying over Belarus) in recent attacks against Russia, thus incensing Russian hardliners who already demanded even before these provocations that Putin authorize conventional strikes against NATO. The loudest and most well-known among them is Sergey Karaganov, whose latest such demands earlier this month have recently been amplified by some top “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” on the podcast circuit.

This coincided with Russian Ambassador to the OSCE Dmitry Polyanskiy ominously warning that it might already be too late to avert a Russian retaliatory strike against at least limited targets in NATO, which was also amplified. In parallel, two separate top “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” strongly suggested that Putin’s trip to China is meant to tip Xi off about another potentially imminent special operation just like his trip during the Beijing Olympics supposedly did the same as regards the ongoing one against Ukraine.

While cynics might suspect that this simultaneous and thematically aligned messaging is coordinated, whether between themselves since many of them appear on each other’s podcasts or perhaps through some Russian source, it’s still possible that they all arrived at the same conclusions independently. Nevertheless, the fact is that these assessments by top “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” preceded SVR’s warning, and both in turn followed credible claims that Ukraine has used Baltic airspace to attack Russia.

As for why Latvia would agree to this despite its government collapsing as the US separately scales back some of its forces in Europe, provided that SVR’s report is true, it might have to do with the antagonist attitude of its permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) towards Russia. As hinted in the preceding sentence, however, now is probably the worst possible time for any NATO member to risk testing the bloc’s commitment to Article 5 and especially that of its US leader.

In the event that Latvia goes through with reportedly allowing Ukraine to launch drones against Russia from its territory, then Russia will likely retaliate against the source of this threat, which could include targeting at least one of the five bases that SVR claimed that its drone teams have already deployed to. If forces from the NATO Multilateral Brigade in Latvia retaliate, such as those from nearby Poland, which already commands European NATO’s largest army, then a hot NATO-Russian war risks breaking out.

Russia doesn’t want to occupy the Baltic States’ mostly hostile populations, nor does it want a war with NATO that could spiral into a nuclear apocalypse, but it also can’t let Baltic-based Ukrainian drone teams attack it with impunity. A special operation against Latvia is therefore unlikely, but much more probable is kinetic retaliation against Ukrainian drone teams there. If Trump doesn’t get Zelensky to back down, then he himself will have to decide whether to back down or risk World War III for Latvia’s sake.