Russia sends horror WW3 threat to UK as Moscow plots attack on 2 major cities | World | News

Vladimir Putin could soon drag British troops into a war in the Baltics after reaching a “dead end” in his invasion of Ukraine.

The warning comes from chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov—a leading Kremlin foe—who predicted the Russian dictator will seek a small “victory over NATO” to compensate for his humiliation in the four-year Ukrainian conflict.

His answer will be to swoop on limited territory in Baltic states Estonia and Latvia, both NATO members, forecast the Putin critic. If Putin opts for Narva, in Estonia, Kasparov says this could lead to the UK forces stationed in the country fighting to defend Estonia against the Russians with no time to wait for a NATO decision on collective defence, which would involve the agreement of Donald Trump.

“Putin is clearly at a dead end in Ukraine,” said Kasparov.

“The front line has frozen, he can do practically nothing there, with mere gains and enormous losses.

“A dictator in his position needs some kind of success.

“Putin, like any dictator, understands that he can be forgiven for everything except losing the war.”

If he is forced to halt his bloody campaign against Ukraine – in which he has lost almost 1.4 million Russian troops – “there can only be one success,” said the grandmaster.

He will see “to inspire people with the idea that we defeated NATO”.

This would involve a provocation or attempt to seize some, perhaps small, areas of NATO territory in the Baltics—this likelihood is growing every day”.

Kasparov pointed to two likely symbolic targets.

“Any success, however limited, is important. Capturing five square kilometres [2 square miles] of territory near Narva [Estonia] or Daugavpils [Latvia].”

These are “Russian-speaking cities close to the border”.

In the case of Narva, Kasparov said British troops could find themselves at war in quick time even without activation of NATO’s Article 5 which could trigger a Third World War.

He implied a secret agreement which would allow the British – with around 900 soldiers in Estonia – to fight outside the NATO umbrella.

“If we imagine for a second that the Russian army – or rather, even its limited contingents – cross the NATO border in the area of Narva [Estonia] or Daugavpils [Latvia], then someone will have to respond,” he said.

“Nobody is going to wait for orders from [NATO HQ in] Brussels, from an American general who would then call Washington.

“And so….we hear Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians openly saying that the Western contingents stationed there – for example the British contingent in Estonia and the Canadian brigade in Latvia – will respond according to the decisions of the local authorities [in Tallinn and Riga].

“In other words, the Estonians are clearly saying that the British brigade will fight alongside the Estonians without waiting to hear what Brussels says.

“I believe there are other agreements as well; we do not know everything to the end.

“But the fact that a new defensive bloc is being formed, one that responds to the concrete problems of today, is a reality.”

Baltic states Latvia and Lithuania have said they would welcome additional US troops if Trump pulls 5,000 or more out of Germany, as he has threatened.

Meanwhile, Volya military Telegram channel has warned that “since mid-March, we have begun receiving confirmations from sources in the Russian Ministry of Defence and other structures that Vladimir Putin’s plans to invade the Baltic states have moved to the next stage.

The aim “is not to start a war with NATO, but to trigger a major crisis within the alliance by invading Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania and, ideally, bring about its effective fragmentation.”

Putin is secretly stockpiling hundreds of thousands of “unkillable” fibre-optic drones for a possible future assault on NATO, said the channel’s sources.

UK troops in Estonia are under Operation Cabrit, the UK contribution to NATO’s enhanced/forward land forces.