Russians will interpret a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine as their victory, which raises concerns about possible threats in our region - Pudans

RIGA - The Russians will interpret a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine as their victory, which raises concerns about a possible regrouping of Russian forces and threats in our region, Latvian Chief of Defense Kaspars Pudans says in an interview with LETA.

Currently there is a lot of talk about ending the conflict in Ukraine, about a ceasefire, as a Russian defeat is now a less likely scenario, says Pudans. In his opinion, the Russians will interpret a ceasefire as their victory, and it certainly raises additional concerns that Russia will be given the opportunity to reorganize again. If there is a ceasefire now, Russia is being given the opportunity to reorganize and it certainly has many lessons to learn from.

If there is a ceasefire, Russia will have to release most of the troops, but some will certainly be kept in Ukraine in order to maintain Russia's understanding of stability and peace. The rest will return to their bases, and their numbers at our border will be higher than before 2022, says Pudans.

Russia will train its troops, its economy can continue to operate for some time, rebuilding Russia's military capabilities.

"The question then is what happens next - they may want to continue their sense of having succeeded, continue to believe that the West is weak, continue to further demonstrate their belief that they are stronger and can harm the West, destroy NATO's unity and keep going. If we look at the geographical factor, there are only a few directions - the Caucasus and the West," emphasizes Pudans.

Moldova is certainly an interesting area for Russia to operate in, but there is still Ukraine in the way, therefore Russia cannot take its troops to Moldova.

The proximity of the Baltic border, on the other hand, means that this is a potential direction for Russia to try to prove its superiority in a direct confrontation with NATO, with different scenarios, to even just test what NATO's reaction would be to a limited, unexpected invasion, says the expert.

Pudans agreed that Russia has the will and, given time to rebuild, the military capability for a broader attack. At the same time, a large-scale conventional attack is impossible, Russia "has the will but not the means", because most Russian units, including those originally stationed at our border, are involved in the Ukrainian war, have suffered in that war, and they need to rebuild.

During the Namejs military exercises for the last eight years, the National Armed Forces have been training for different scenarios, each unit has been given different tasks for both classic military threats and hybrid threats.

The most important thing is that in recent years the Armed Forces are no longer preparing for such scenarios alone, they are involving in military exercises both national security authorities, the State Police, the Border Guard and, increasingly, civilian institutions - municipalities, state institutions, citizens, businesses, says Pudans.