For Zygimantas Pavilionis, a member of the Lithuanian parliament, history is repeating itself: The Kremlin’s military sights are set on Europe beyond Ukraine and the U.S. is not listening to warnings from the Baltics.
“In Europe, they listen to the Baltics, but in America, they are so arrogant that they don’t listen,” Pavilionis said.
On top of its all-out war in Ukraine, Russia has recently driven up tensions around the NATO-allied Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — as well as nearby Finland and Sweden, raising concerns about its intentions in the area.
Over the past year, Russia has made several moves in the Baltic Sea area, including GPS jamming, removing boundary markers in the Narva River that separates Russia and Estonia, and a brief attempt to change the maritime border between Lithuania and Finland.
Earlier in May, Micael Byden, the commander of the Swedish Armed Service, the military protecting NATO’s newest member, also warned that the Kremlin may be seeking dominance over the Baltic Sea and has his eye on Sweden’s island of Gotland.
A lot has changed since the time leading up to 2014 when Russia launched its aggression against Ukraine, and when Baltic state officials say their warnings of larger Russian threats on the Trans-Atlantic community often went ignored.
But despite its full-scale invasion in 2022 and recent escalations, some from the Baltics say Washington still isn’t heeding their warnings of the threat of Russia — one the countries know intimately after over half a century of Soviet occupation and decades of bordering modern-day Russia, making them some of Ukraine’s strongest advocates in the U.S. capital.
If they were listening, aid to Ukraine wouldn’t have been delayed, Kyiv’s pleas to lift a ban on Western-made long-range weapons to strike inside Russia and cripple its war machine would be granted, and NATO would consider strengthening its eastern flank, Pavilionis said.
U.S. presidential elections on the horizon also make the stakes especially high as they could see Donald Trump return to the White House. The former Republican president, espousing isolationist views, has criticized aid to Ukraine, repeatedly flaunted his relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and called into question NATO’s existence.
Trump's vice presidential pick JD Vance has said he “doesn’t care” what happens to Ukraine, leading to fears that a Republican-led U.S. would mean the worst for Ukraine and the entire region.
Only one Republican skeptical of the then-stalled Ukraine aid package of $61 billion took a meeting back in February with a Baltic delegation, according to Pavilionis, which is why he both then and now calls for members of Congress to “wake up.”
“(American isolation) would mean war in the Baltics,” he told the Kyiv Independent.
‘A lot of explaining’
While war may be unlikely in the region’s direct future, the three Baltic nations are not sitting idle. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania lead NATO in defense spending.
As a percent of gross domestic product, Estonia is set to spend 3.43% on defense in 2024, well above NATO’s 2% guidelines and America’s 2.7%,a drop from 5.7% during the Cold War.
Just recently, Lithuania said it had blocked and fortified a bridge over the Nieman River linking it to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
Their knowledge of the threats, which also include cyber attacks in addition to maritime menaces, is also behind a lot of their lobbying in support of Ukraine.
Numerous lawmakers who spoke with the Kyiv Independent said there is bipartisan consensus that the Baltic states remain some of the most effective voices in Washington to further support for Ukraine.
“There's probably no better advocates for Ukraine than the Baltic countries,” Republican Congressman Don Bacon, who is co-chair of the House Baltics Caucus, said.
"There's probably no better advocates for Ukraine than the Baltic countries."
Their support — and understanding of the risks — is evidenced in disproportionately high levels of military support for Ukraine.
The Baltic states, despite having a collective smaller population than New York City, were among the top four donors in aid to Ukraine this summer.
As some Republicans continually criticize European countries for not spending an equal percentage of their budget on aid for Ukraine as the U.S., it’s appreciated how the Baltics have punched above their weight in support of Kyiv, according to a Senate foreign policy aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Convincing its Western allies to act decisively in supporting Ukraine is another story.
“It takes a lot of explaining to connect the dots,” Estonia’s U.S. Ambassador Kristjan Prikk told the Kyiv Independent, describing how he explains to U.S. officials that Russia’s war in Ukraine isn’t just about Putin wanting Kyiv, it’s also his undermining of the U.S.
“Quite often our role has been to spell it out and explain to people what’s at stake.”
When Ambassador Prikk served in Washington over a decade ago during the three years preceding Crimea’s annexation, explaining Russia’s threat to the West was immensely difficult, he said. At times, his warnings of Russia’s threats to European security would even go ignored.
Today, I met with Speakers of the Baltic states to discuss ongoing challenges that face our countries. We discussed the importance of deterring threats like China, Russia, and Iran, and we noted the importance of viable U.S. energy production for the Baltics and the risks posed… pic.twitter.com/RUNAV6DKOx
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) January 30, 2024
“(Baltic countries) have a good story to tell and people to a degree are listening,” Jeremy Shapiro, a U.S. foreign policy expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said.
In February when Ukraine’s $61 billion aid package was held up in Washington, parliamentary speakers from each Baltic nation met with Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, delivering a message that Russia will act on any sign that Western support of Ukraine is waning.
Johnson then received a letter in April shortly before allowing the aid to pass from his Baltic counterparts requesting he deliver the “indispensable aid” to Ukraine.
“Supporting Ukraine is an investment in our collective secure future,” the letter said.
Even though Prikk says the Baltics are increasingly listened to because of the region's “credibility” given Russian drones exploding in Latvia and other examples of the region’s proximity to Russia, it’s a matter of constant work.
With the Middle East’s widening war competing for U.S. resources, the elongated presence of Cold War-era Washington officials, and a swift news cycle atop a condensed attention span, explaining Russia’s threat to Washington is like cycling, you can’t stop pedaling, he said.
Expanding NATO’s presence in the east
With a few hundred American troops based indefinitely in the Baltics and $228 million in U.S. aid approved for the region’s three countries this year, some would like to see a larger NATO military presence in the region as tensions between Russia and NATO escalate.
Congressman Bacon said the U.S. needs to do more to build up air defenses in the Baltics, likely meaning more American troops in the region.
“We need to be there for deterrence,” Rep. Bacon, a former Air Force general said. “I know the Russians know we’re there and that’s what counts.”
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, a member of the Senate’s Baltic Freedom Caucus, said Russia ought to know that the U.S. is ready to defend its obligations to fellow NATO members.
“I think it’s very necessary that the U.S. makes it very clear that we consider the Baltics in our sphere and not Russia’s.”
“We’ve got to spend more on our own defense because we’re relatively weak now,” Sen. Grassley said, referencing American preparedness in the face of adversarial hostility. “I don’t feel very secure.”
Disagreements remain on the Hill over whether more U.S. troops should be in the Baltics near Russia’s westernmost NATO border. The worry is that more U.S. personnel near Russia, whether troops in the Baltics or diplomats in Ukraine, could trigger Russian escalation.
The Baltic states likely want a permanent presence of a few border divisions, according to Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO.
“That’s just not going to happen because those (troops,) if they’re deployed there, then they can’t be used anywhere else,” Daalder said.
Ambassador Prikk says the region isn’t asking for more U.S. troops, just military training and a defense plan. Even if the region was demanding more troops, there are still worries that the Baltics don’t fully have Washington’s ear.
It’s not that the U.S. isn’t listening, Daalder said, it’s that the realities of being a global ally an ocean away come into play when Russia’s threat is singular and existential for the Baltics but not for the U.S., despite being critical.
Pavilionis, who is also a former U.S. Ambassador said he too hopes NATO enlargement will be a focus for the next White House come January.
The spectre of Trump
A potential second Donald Trump presidency throws America’s commitment to the alliances into question, not least because of the former president’s critical remarks of the alliance in the past.
One of the reasons Pavillionis believes the Baltics need to escalate their diplomatic efforts in Washington is because of the influence he says autocratic countries are having amongst Republicans.
In September, the U.S. State Department said the Russian state-run media outlet RT was actively working with Russian intelligence to spread propaganda in the U.S. partly in an attempt to push U.S. viewers toward voting for Trump.
Particularly concerning for the Baltics is the pro-Russian messaging of far-right American commentator Tucker Carlson, and his success in retaining the ear of elected Republicans.
Sen. Grassley said he “worries a lot” about the praise some members of his party have for Carlson and Putin, but added that it is partly a messaging issue that many Americans are unaware that billions of American aid for Ukraine is spent in the U.S.
Ambassador Prikk said that navigating pro-Kremlin sentiment amongst the right in Washington has been an unusual challenge.
And the last time Pavillionis was in Washington in early 2024, every third Republican on the Hill was speaking like Putin, he said.
“We have to take care of this infiltration of autocracies inside the Republican party.”
Chris York
Introducing official
merch from the Kyiv Independent
