Biden's response to Kremlin is clear signal that it should not conduct any military adventures in the Baltics - political expert

RIGA - The response of US President Joe Biden to the Kremlin clearly states that military adventures in the Baltic States would better be avoided, Ojars Skudra, an associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Latvia, told LETA.

Skudra admitted that this response may be based on information from the US and Allied intelligence services about the situation in Russia and its ruling circles, as well as the fact that there are people in these circles ready for military adventures.

Skudra pointed out that the plan previously announced by Russian political veteran Vladimir Zhirinovsky is gradually being implemented in Ukraine, and plans for a Russian military operation in the Baltic states have also been made public. It was soon reported that Sweden had increased its patrols on the island of Gotland.

Skudra admitted that this was the background to the US decision to increase its military presence in the Baltics, so that radicals in the Kremlin were clear that they would be dealing with NATO and the US as a whole, and that they would be better off to avoid conducting military adventures in the Baltics.

The political scientist said that in the next few weeks it will be clear how radical the European Union's sanctions policy against Russia can be, and whether it will be able to ignore the thoughts and statements of corrupt circles in Spain and Italy.

Skudra also reminded that Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia has no plans to cut off gas supplies to Europe, which means that they will continue through Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, as well as the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. Thus, Putin hopes to strengthen the position that it would be wrong to apply sanctions to the energy sector.

As reported, US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the United States would continue to supply "defensive" weapons to Ukraine against the Russian invasion and deploy more US troops to reinforce NATO allies in the Baltics.

"I have authorized additional movements of US forces and equipment, already stationed in Europe, to strengthen our Baltic allies, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania," Biden said. "Let me be clear, these are totally defensive moves on our part."

Some 800 infantry soldiers will be deployed from Italy to the Baltic region, the Pentagon reported.

Also, eight F-35 fighter jets will be moved from Germany to NATO's eastern flank.

The US will also send 32 AH-64 Apache attack helicopters to the Baltic region and to Poland, a government official said.