Latvian official warns Russia ‘tempted to test’ European readiness, sounds alarm over border issues

WASHINGTON — While Latvia assesses that a Russian large-scale attack on a NATO member-state like the one seen in Ukraine in 2022 is highly unlikely, the Baltic nation is worried Moscow could launch smaller-scale operations to test Europe’s reaction, a senior Latvian Ministry of Defense official said today.

The country is not evaluating any single attack scenario Russia could attempt, but rather considering the many ways Moscow could target Latvia, Airis Rikveilis, the state secretary at Latvia’s Ministry of Defense, told Breaking Defense.

“I don’t think one can surprise an average Latvian with what Russians are capable of — from our perspective, nothing, literally nothing, they are capable of can make my people overly surprised in terms of what they are trying to achieve,” said Rikveilis, who spoke on the sidelines of the AUSA conference here.

Rikveilis said the main reason they view such a large-scale assault as largely impossible to replicate is that Russia currently lacks the credible, significant military forces required for such an operation.

“What is possible and we think [is] that certainly the Russians would be tempted to test the readiness [of countries] on a smaller-scale,” he said.

Rikveilis is not the first European official to warn that Russia may test the resolve of Europe or the NATO military alliance. Moscow, for its part, has dismissed the suggestion that it’s a threat.

Rikveilis appeared to link the threat to Riga’s growing troubles with illegal migration. The Baltic state shares an approximately 276 kilometers (171 miles) border with Russia and roughly 161 kilometers (100 miles) one with Russian ally Belarus.

According to Rikveilis, there have been nearly 12,000 cases overall of illegal attempts to penetrate into Latvian territory, where, in a small number of instances, the culprits intended to cross the border via underground tunnels.

“What concerns us is the profile of that intruder, if I might say, or illegal migrant, which is mostly young males in the conscription age — nothing to do in my analysis with a specific need to seek refuge,” Rikveilis said.

Regarding the use of tunnels, the Warsaw-based television channel Belsat reported in September that the first case of illegal border crossing in Latvia occurred on Aug. 10, when authorities found 15 individuals who had crossed from Belarus. A few days later, authorities reportedly discovered a second tunnel, through which 28 people crossed from Belarus again. That same day, the Latvian State Border Guard also reported 109 attempts to cross the border from Belarus. 

To address this issue, Rikveilis explained that the country has been running a national operation involving the border guard and military, which cooperate in part on search capabilities.

So far, Rikveilis said they have concluded that the approach these people have adopted is “organized, orchestrated and professionally led,” and that the tunnels are not simple dug-outs but were done in “quite a professional job,” he said.