NATO's former secretary-general has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could engineer a Ukraine-style intervention in one of the Baltic republics as the leaders of France and Germany flew to Moscow to make a last-ditch bid for peace in eastern Europe.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Britain's Daily Telegraph Thursday that Putin's goal was to reassert Russian dominance of Eastern Europe by testing, and ultimately fracturing the West's bedrock Cold War alliance.
"There is a high probability that he will intervene in the Baltics to test NATO's Article 5," Rasmussen said, referring to the section of NATO's charter mandating that other member states come to the defense of a fellow member under armed attack. "Putin knows that if he crosses the red line and attacks a Nato ally, he will be defeated. Let us be quite clear about that. But he is a specialist in hybrid warfare."
All three of the so-called Baltic republics -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- were part of the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. All three joined NATO in 2004. All three also have sizable minority populations of ethnic Russians. Rasmussen says his fear is that Moscow will generate a conflict under murky pretenses, In the case of Ukraine, the fall of the pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych prompted Russia's annexation of Crimea and a bloody civil war between Kiev's new pro-Western government and separatist rebels thought to be trained and equipped by Russia's military.
Article 5 has been invoked only once in NATO's 66-year history, by the U.S. after the September 11, 2001 attacks. It is not clear what would happen if a NATO member claimed Article 5 protection, but was turned down by the NATO council.
Rasmussen added that many of NATO's European member nations have slashed military spending to such an extent that they cannot defend themselves without U.S. help.
"Nato countries have cut defense spending by 20 percent in real terms over the last five years – and some by 40percent - while Russia has increased by 80percent. The aggression in Ukraine is a wake-up call," Rasmussen said.
"We learned in the Libyan crisis that Europe is totally reliant on the Americans for air-refueling, drones, and communications intelligence. We don’t have air transport. It is really bad."
Meanwhile, in Ukraine itself, the rebels reached an agreement Friday with government forces on a humanitarian corridor to evacuate civilians from the epicenter of fighting on Friday.
Rebel leaders said the agreement would allow the evacuation of civilians from Debaltseve, a key railway hub that has become the focus of fighting in recent weeks because of its strategic location. It wasn't immediately clear where the evacuees would go.
The cease-fire around Debaltseve held Friday as a convoy of several dozen buses drove from nearby Vuhelhirsk toward Debaltsevo, where a shrinking population has been trapped in cross-fire and left without power, heating and running water for almost two weeks. Half-way to Debaltsevo, the convoy's movement was stopped by concrete blocks, apparently intended to block military vehicles from using the road.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande are set to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin a day after discussing their proposals with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. In a sign of the importance of the initiative, this will be Merkel's first trip to Moscow since Ukraine's conflict broke out last year.
The fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russia-backed separatist rebels and Ukrainian forces has intensified sharply over the past two weeks. Russia vehemently denies that it is backing the insurgency with troops and weapons, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry rejected that denial on Thursday's visit to Kiev.
More than 5,300 people have been killed since the separatist insurgency flared up in eastern Ukraine in April following Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Original post found here: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/02/06/ex-nato-chief-warns-putin-could-attack-baltics-as-ukraine-rebels-reach/
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