The Trump administration has responded robustly to Russian threats against NATO ally Latvia. As U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Tammy Bruce put it on Tuesday, “The United States keeps all of its NATO commitments.”
The moral cause of freedom aside, NATO continues to serve Americans by consolidating a democratic peace in Europe that facilitates vast and growing economic opportunities. Alongside their U.S. investments, imports of U.S. goods and services by NATO member states accounted for nearly $1.5 trillion in 2025, for example.
But Latvia, as with Poland and its Baltic state companions in Estonia and Lithuania, is a truly superb, pro-American ally. Latvia will spend 4.9%-of-GDP on defense in 2026, well above U.S. GDP defense spending and one of the highest allocations in NATO.
Russia falsely claims that Latvia is allowing Ukrainian drone forces to operate from its territory and thus skirt Russian air defense networks. This claim reflects Russia’s growing concern over Ukraine’s growing ability to penetrate its air defense networks.
Last weekend, Ukraine succeeded in launching a dramatic strike on energy targets in Moscow. Russia also heavily scaled down a major annual military parade, fearing that it would be targeted. Blaming Latvia for allowing Ukrainian attacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes to distract from his inability to protect the Russian capital.
On Tuesday, Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service leapt into action. Home to the Russian intelligence tradition of inventing provocations — this tradition dates back to the czars — the SVR claimed that “Despite the fears of the Latvian side to become a victim of Moscow’s retaliatory strike, [Ukraine] persuaded [Latvia] to agree to the operation… the country’s membership in NATO will not protect the accomplices of terrorists from fair retribution.” Russia’s Ambassador to the UN added, “membership of NATO will not protect you from retaliation.”
It’s important to understand what’s going on here. Russia’s gripes are not vested in legitimate grievances. Instead, the Kremlin is attempting to distract its people, divide NATO, and discourage continued support for Ukraine.
When he began the war on Ukraine in February 2022, Putin expected a decisive victory within a matter of weeks. Instead, the war has dragged on for more than four years. Those four years have taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers and dragged the Russian economy into a growing crisis. The front line is now an effective stalemate.
To distract from this failure, the Kremlin is attempting to refocus Russian popular ire on NATO. The Kremlin wants to create a sense of uncertainty in NATO, exploiting existing tensions over defense spending, Greenland, and recent U.S. troop withdrawals from Germany and cancelled deployments to Poland.
It’s good news, then, that the U.S. isn’t biting at this poisoned bait.
NATO’s shared resolve renders Russia’s threat distinctly overblown. Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and is utterly unprepared for a confrontation with NATO. The commander of a Canadian unit in Latvia emphasized last week that, “there is nothing on the other side of the border that can take out this brigade. And when there’s something that can take out this brigade, NATO’s going to put more forces here, I’m confident in that.” The U.S., France, Poland and the United Kingdom also have the ability to surge airborne infantry forces into the Baltics at extremely short notice. Nor will Russia risk nuclear escalation, being that, Putin’s rhetoric aside, it knows it would badly lose such a confrontation.
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This does not mean NATO can assume anything. Although highly unlikely, Russia may launch a limited or semi-deniable drone or missile attack on Latvia in an attempt to test NATO’s resolve. The U.S. should thus make clear that it will support decisive retaliation in response to any attack.
That being said, however, a continued display of unified resolve will almost certainly be sufficient to deter Russian aggression.