Russia Preparing for Large-Scale Conflict With NATO: ISW

Russia is expanding part of its army to ready itself for a large-scale conflict with NATO, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has said.

The independent Washington, D.C. think tank’s assessment on Friday follows a report in the Kremlin-friendly newspaper Izvestia about the Russian Defense Ministry’s expansion of the newly formed Leningrad Military District. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced this in December in response to Finland joining the NATO alliance.

Russian Defense Ministry sources told Izvestia that, in Karelia, a republic in Russia’s north bordering Finland, a missile brigade with Iskander-M ballistic missile systems had been formed. A tank division is also being considered, but no decision has yet been made about it.

Meanwhile, Russia has also deployed a new air force and air defense army in the region, consisting of regiments of fighters and bombers, as well as air defense units and radio engineering troops, Izvestia paper reported.

Newsweek has emailed the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.

Former Russian Baltic Fleet commander Admiral Vladimir Valuyev told Izvestia this was in response to Helsinki’s accession to NATO and to strengthen Russia’s force posturing along its western flank.

Valuyev said that “if the worst comes to the worst, the missile brigade… will deal with tasks regarding NATO forces that pose a threat,” adding that “now we have to keep an eye on the Finns.”

Helsinki was spurred into joining the alliance—whose charter’s Article 5 treats an attack on one as an attack on all—due to the threat to regional security caused by Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Finland and its Nordic neighbor Sweden have expanded the NATO alliance to 32 members. In response, last month Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced two new armies and 30 new formations by the end of the year.

Plans include the reformation of the Moscow military districts and an increase in size of the Russian Armed Forces from 1.2 million to 1.5 million troops, although experts have cast doubt on the ability to man, train and equip these new larger formations.

However, Putin and other Russian officials continue to frame the war he started in Ukraine as part of a wider existential conflict with the West to justify a long-term Russian war effort.

President Joe Biden is among Kyiv’s allies who have warned that Russia has its sights further afield than Ukraine and would take on NATO members.

Putin has rejected these claims as “nonsense”. However, adding to the ambiguity of the messaging from the Kremlin and its propagandists, the Russian president said after his disputed election victory “everything is possible,” regarding a conflict with the alliance.