A potential ceasefire would provide Ukraine a much-needed respite — but would raise difficult security questions for NATO states along Russia's frontier. Even as the U.S.-led peace push has slowed, officials in Kyiv still hope they can end the active phase of fighting before winter. And while Europe firmly backs these efforts, its planners are increasingly sounding the alarm about the prospect of battle-hardened, modernized Russian armies freed for deployment along the Baltic or Nordic borders

Experts and officials who spoke to the Kyiv Independent say Russia has the means to launch a low-intensity operation to test NATO at any moment — if there is political will in the Kremlin.

Latvian intelligence has even reported signals that Russia may be preparing such provocations against the Baltics or Poland.

However, a European intelligence source told the Kyiv Independent that Moscow does not seem currently intent on attacking NATO.

Yet, the source acknowledged that “Russia’s behavior is susceptible to miscalculations,” noting that “starting the full-scale war in Ukraine was a major miscalculation that they are still dealing with.”

A full-scale invasion to seize a whole NATO country is another matter than a low-scale provocation, however.

Tomas Jermalavicius, a security expert at the International Center for Defense and Security (ICDS) in Tallinn, estimates Russia will be able to pose a “severe full-scale threat to NATO’s eastern and northeastern front-lines between two and five years from the moment the ceasefire is achieved.”