Putin has his eyes on another European country, an expert suggests, as fears of further Russian aggression grip the continent. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) stated in June that the Kremlin has been setting “informational conditions to justify potential aggression against Moldova and the Baltic states” by using an alleged need to protect its “compatriots abroad”. Russia also claims that these former Soviet countries are part of the “Russkiy Mir” – the idea of the “Russian world” abroad.

This is the same narrative, specialists suggest, that Putin used to justify its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In May, experts warned that Russian security services continued to conduct hybrid operations against the US and its allies “in preparation for a larger future war with NATO”. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), with the intelligence services of Germany, Czechia, Poland, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, and the Netherlands, issued a cybersecurity advisory, stating that the Russian General Staff’s Main Directorate (GRU) has targeted the defence, transportation, and IT service verticals within NATO member states, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine.

Now, another specialist has suggested that Russia is casting its eyes over eastern Europe.

“As a military intelligence analyst specialising in Putin’s thinking and Russian military strategy, I agree with Rutte’s assessment about Russia’s readiness for another offensive military campaign in just a few years,” Russian-born US intelligence expert Rebekah Koffler wrote in The Telegraph.

“I’m less convinced that a NATO country is likely to be the Kremlin’s next target, unless the alliance directly intervenes in Ukraine by deploying troops onto the battlefield.

“Nevertheless, what NATO does or doesn’t do in the next few years could be highly significant in determining whether Putin decides to attack another post-Soviet state – such as Moldova.”

The expert warns that Russia envisions undermining NATO’s “network-centric approach to war” by targeting the C4ISR (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) and space systems on which the organisation’s forces depend.

Members states, therefore, need to do more than spend money, and instead better understand the alliance’s vulnerabilities.

They also need to bear in mind that the Kremlin favours indirect methods of fighting its opponents, rather than the use of brute force.