US intelligence officials have warned that Russia could send an unmarked armed group to occupy NATO territory within weeks, according to a Wall Street Journal report, marking a significant shift from previous assessments as Western forces report a sharp rise in Russian probing activity along the alliance’s borders.
Russia could send an armed group to occupy NATO territory within weeks, according to a warning from US intelligence. The assessment, reported by The Wall Street Journal, marks a notable departure from previous thinking within US intelligence circles, which had held that Vladimir Putin would avoid provoking NATO directly while Russian forces remained engaged in fighting Ukraine. NATO members now believe Putin is already conducting probing attacks designed to test and fracture the alliance, even as Russia faces fresh setbacks from intensifying Ukrainian strikes reaching further into its territory.
A shifting US assessment
According to the Wall Street Journal report, US intelligence’s view of the risk changed earlier this year. It is important to note that the reported assessment does not conclude that a Russian attack on NATO territory is imminent; rather, it sets out a range of scenarios that planners believe should be considered over a period stretching from this autumn through to 2029.
Those potential scenarios reportedly include cyberattacks, sabotage, GPS jamming, disinformation campaigns, the use of unmarked armed groups, sometimes referred to as “little green men,” or a limited cross-border incursion, rather than a full-scale invasion. The term “little green men” originates from the unmarked Russian personnel who seized key sites in Crimea in 2014, ahead of Russia’s formal annexation of the peninsula. The Wall Street Journal report described the possible threats as ranging “from a cyberattack on a NATO country or sending unmarked armed groups to occupy territory to a limited incursion on the alliance’s eastern flank.”
Rising signs of Russian probing activity
Evidence of increased Russian probing has already been observed by Western forces. Fighter jets have been scrambled three times in recent weeks to intercept drones, while Ukraine recently intercepted a drone that had earlier crossed into Romanian airspace. Such Quick Reaction Alert missions, in which NATO aircraft intercept unidentified or non-communicating aircraft approaching allied airspace, are a routine precautionary measure and do not necessarily indicate hostile intent on their own.
However, the frequency of these missions has climbed sharply: fighter jets were scrambled over 250% more often in July compared with the same month a year earlier. NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum highlighted the scale of the increase in a social media post, stating: “The numbers do not lie.”
NATO has also reported a broader rise in Russian hybrid activity in recent years, including cyberattacks, GPS interference, suspected sabotage and espionage operations targeting member states.
NATO’s response
Responding to the intelligence warning, NATO spokesman Colonel Martin O’Donnell said the alliance continually prepares for a range of contingencies. “We are always thinking through and preparing for any number of scenarios,” he said. “NATO is watching and we are ready to deter and defend as necessary.”
Under NATO’s Article 5, an armed attack against one member state is considered an attack against the alliance as a whole, meaning member countries can respond collectively should a member be attacked. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, NATO has significantly reinforced its eastern flank, deploying multinational battlegroups across Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia. The alliance has also expanded its membership, with Finland joining in 2023 and Sweden in 2024, substantially extending NATO’s shared border with Russia.
Where a Russian move might occur
One theory under consideration is that Putin could attempt to seize a city or region in Poland or in one of the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, all NATO members that have strongly backed Ukraine throughout the conflict. Defence analysts have long regarded the Baltic states and parts of Poland as among the alliance’s most strategically sensitive regions, given their proximity both to Russia and to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
Russia has consistently denied harbouring any intention to attack NATO, instead characterising the alliance’s military expansion near its borders as destabilising. NATO rejects that characterisation, maintaining that its deployments along the eastern flank are defensive in nature.
Concerns over munitions supplies
The intelligence warning comes amid separate US concerns about a shortfall in munitions, following the depletion of supplies through continued support for Ukraine and use in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, factors that add further complexity to how NATO and its members might respond to any Russian move against alliance territory.
