POSSIBLE FLASHPOINTS BETWEEN RUSSIA AND NATO

  1. Gotland: Russia could try to seize the strategically Swedish island as a way to control the Baltic Sea, cutting off the Baltic States
  2. The Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the most likely front line of any future crisis. An accident or overstep could be miscontrued
  3. Narva (Estonia): A full quarter of Estonia's population is ethnically Russian. Clustered on the border with Russia, this minority is served by the same Russian state media that helped stir up separatist violence among Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine. A Russian invasion of Estonia would legally obligate the US and most of Europe to declare war on Moscow. Rather than rolling Russian tanks across the border, Putin would perhaps seed unmarked Russian special forces into, say, the Russian-majority city of Narva in Estonia, where they would organize localized violence or a phony independence referendum.
  4. Kaliningrad: Russia has placed nuclear-capable bombers and medium-range, nuclear-capable Iskander missiles in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.
  5. Lithuania
  6. Poland
  7. Eastern and Southern Ukraine

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