Russia may attempt 'border incursions into Baltic States' to test Article 5, ex-MI6 chief warns
Ex-MI6 chief Sir John Sawers has warned of potential border incursions into the Baltic States by Russia to "test whether Article 5 is still there".
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Speaking on LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr, Sir John said he believed Putin’s army "is not in a fit state to invade any other country" but "we will see the Russians continuing to fund extremist parties… to undermine European democracy".
He said he believed there would be "more targeted attacks against undersea cables and maybe gas pipelines, just to unnerve the Europeans".
"I think it's a national turning point in terms of European security," Sir John said.
"I think my successors in the intelligence services here will be doing everything they can to maintain a really productive and close intelligence relationship with their American counterparts.
"Obviously, there's a challenge in there, but a lot of the work takes place below the radar as is natural in intelligence communities.
"And I think, as we saw during the first Trump term, this has the support of both sides of leadership on both sides, so I think they'll be trying to preserve as much as they can."
Asked if he is concerned about a larger war taking place, Sir John said: "I'm more reserved about that. I think we've seen the scale of the difficulty that the Russian army has got into.
"We were somewhat alarmed when almost 200,000 Russian troops surrounded Ukraine three years ago, but now they've lost maybe 800,000 according to the latest estimates, people killed and seriously wounded.
"They're not in a fit state to invade any other country. What I do think we will see is the Russians continuing to fund extremist parties, both the far right and the far left in Europe, in order to undermine European democracy.
"I think we'll see more targeted attacks against undersea cables and maybe gas pipelines, just to unnerve the Europeans.
"And we might see some border incursions into the Baltic States, for example, just to test whether Article 5 is still there.
"So, the Russians want to recreate a sphere of influence for Russia beyond their borders, and they want a neutral zone in Central Europe.
"We, in Europe, have to be ready to stand up to against that for our European allies."