Estonian soldiers march during a war memorial ceremony in Narva, Estonia, on Jan. 3, 2025. A limited Russian attack on the Estonian border city, directly across the Narva River from Russia, could challenge NATO’s ability to respond without Moscow committing to a broader invasion, according to a hypothetical scenario published by the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War. (Rose Di Trolio/U.S. Army)
Russia could test NATO’s bedrock collective defense pledge by sending a small number of troops to seize a sliver of Estonia, forcing allies to decide whether they want to risk taking it back, a new assessment says.
The aim would be “breaking the alliance by causing it to fail to activate and act appropriately on its Article 5 commitments,” the Institute for the Study of War said in an analysis published Monday.
According to NATO’s founding charter, an attack on one member country is considered an attack on all of them. Invoking Article 5 is designed to trigger a collective military response by the other 31 countries in the bloc on behalf of the one under attack.
“A number of NATO states will likely be very hesitant to invoke Article 5 over a limited incursion, fearing the consequences of appearing to launch the alliance into a full-scale war with Russia,” the report said.
Such an operation around the Estonian border city of Narva could unfold without the major buildup that NATO might expect before an invasion, according to the Washington-based think tank.
Instead, Russia could position drone units inside its own territory while operatives seized key locations in Narva and declared a breakaway enclave.
The report comes amid heightened concern about security along NATO’s eastern flank, where a series of drone incidents has forced alliance militaries to grapple with defending large areas against relatively inexpensive unmanned aircraft.
Questions also are mounting about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions toward NATO. A surprise visit to Moscow last month by CIA Director John Ratcliffe raised worries in Europe about the potential for a wider confrontation.
Since then, numerous European officials have warned that the chances of a Russian attack are on the rise.
Last week, Russia imposed temporary restrictions in areas across the border from Narva, including a curfew and restriction of firearms. Those measures demand attention, the Institute for the Study of War said.
“Ratcliffe’s visit along with other indications that Putin is seriously considering and preparing for options to test and even attack NATO make open and detailed discussion of scenarios such as this one urgent,” the report states.
For years, NATO commanders have worried about a possible Russian attack on the alliance’s eastern flank, with particular attention paid to the Suwalki Gap, the narrow corridor connecting Poland and Lithuania between Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave.
But the report argues that a much smaller operation could offer Moscow another way to challenge the alliance, particularly if Putin believed he could fracture NATO without triggering a full-scale war.
By keeping an attack geographically limited, the Kremlin could force allies to consider whether recovering a small piece of Estonian territory was worth the danger of escalating into a broader conflict with nuclear-armed Russia, the report said.
Debate over the future U.S. military presence in Europe also complicates matters. Uncertainty about the American commitment to Europe could encourage Moscow to gamble on a limited attack, the report said.
If NATO proved unable to muster a unified response, the alliance’s credibility would be in tatters and its future viability left in doubt.
The think tank’s hypothetical operation centers on Narva, a predominantly Russian-speaking city near the border. Russian agents inside the city could seize buildings and positions and proclaim a “Narva People’s Republic,” according to the scenario.
Moscow could then claim that the confrontation was an internal dispute while Russian drones operating largely from Russian territory attacked Estonian forces attempting to regain control.
“Russia could seek to exploit that political decision-making process by keeping an operation geographically small while simultaneously threatening escalation,” according to ISW.
But any such mission would carry risks for Putin given that Russia is in no position to wage a full-scale conflict with a unified NATO, the report said.
“Putin is very unlikely to choose military options against NATO that badly undermine his efforts in Ukraine unless he is confident that such military action will destroy the alliance or end European support for Ukraine,” the report said.
To prevent such a scenario from happening, European allies should rapidly expand drone, counter-drone and electronic warfare capabilities and position them near vulnerable borders before a crisis makes moving them forward difficult, the report said.
The scenario echoes warnings earlier this year that Moscow could exploit Narva’s predominantly Russian-speaking population. Some Estonians shrugged off the warnings, arguing that such coverage amplified Russian disinformation.
“I think most of the ethnic Russians in Narva would shoot the ethnic Russians coming across the river,” said Paul Goble, a former State Department adviser on Baltic affairs. “Most people in Narva feel far closer to Tallinn than they do Moscow, even though they speak Russian.”