How Did We Get Here?

As of early July 6, 2026, Russia’s war in Ukraine has ground on for more than four years since the February 2022 invasion — far longer than Moscow originally planned. The Kremlin expected a swift takeover. It did not get one. The longer the war continues, the fewer viable options the Russian government appears to have. Western funding and Ukraine’s determination to remain sovereign have shifted the momentum. What began as a rout has settled into a stalemate, but the trajectory increasingly favours Ukraine.

Meanwhile, relentless Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil and energy infrastructure have triggered fuel shortages across a majority of Russia’s regions — a burden now falling squarely on ordinary Russians. The war’s economic costs are becoming impossible to conceal domestically.

Russian threats against NATO members are not new. What is new is the specificity of the intelligence warning and the context in which it arrives: a strained alliance, an unpredictable American president, and a Russian leadership that appears increasingly cornered by the war’s costs at home.

Will Russia Really Attack a NATO Member?

Why would Russia risk direct confrontation with NATO while still fighting in Ukraine? The most likely answer is that it would not be a direct confrontation at all. The likeliest scenario is a limited provocation designed to fracture Western political will — to pressure NATO members into scaling back support for Ukraine without inviting a full Article 5 response.

That calculation may look more attractive to Moscow right now given the visible friction inside the alliance — including President Trump’s consistently warmer rhetoric toward Putin and his territorial pressure on Denmark over Greenland. Whether that friction runs as deep as it appears from the outside, Russian strategic planners likely see an opening worth probing.

If Russia does move against a NATO member, it almost certainly will not resemble the Ukraine invasion. Expect drones crossing into NATO airspace, a limited border incursion, or a hybrid sabotage operation — not tanks rolling toward Warsaw. The bet would not be on winning a war with NATO. It would be on winning a political argument inside it: exposing division, slowing arms deliveries, and demonstrating that Article 5 is a guarantee with conditions.

My Take

The more dangerous scenario is not a Russian military move that NATO responds to cleanly. It is a hybrid provocation ambiguous enough that alliance members cannot agree on what happened, who is responsible, or what Article 5 requires. That ambiguity is the weapon. Russia does not need to defeat NATO militarily. It needs NATO to defeat itself politically — and right now, the alliance is providing more material for that argument than it should.

The West built NATO on the principle that an attack on one is an attack on all. That principle has never been tested in the way it may be about to be. Whether the alliance holds will depend not on military capability — which is sufficient — but on political will. And political will, in 2026, is the one thing the alliance cannot take for granted.