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Russia’s former prime minister warned on Monday that if Ukraine falls to Russia, Putin will attack the Baltic States next.
Mikhail Kasyanov, who served as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first prime minister from 2000 to 2004, told Agence France-Presse on Monday that it is imperative for Ukraine to defeat invading Russian forces because he believes if Ukraine loses the war, Putin will then set his sights on invading Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
“If Ukraine falls, the Baltic States will be next,” Kasyanov said.
The Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have all been members of NATO since 2004. An attack by Russia on any of those nations would likely trigger a military response by alliance members under NATO’s Article V mutual defense provision.
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Invading any of the Baltic countries would be a major escalation for Putin, but Kasyanov said he believes the Russian president isn’t thinking straight and acting very differently from when the two worked together in the Kremlin.
“I just know these people, and by looking at them I saw that Putin is already out of it. Not in a medical sense, but in political terms,” he said.
“I knew a different Putin,” Kasyanov added.
The former prime minister said that he expects the war in Ukraine to last up to two years, and he rejected calls from the West for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia in order to end the war.
“What has Putin done to deserve this?” Kasyanov said. “This is an overly pragmatic position.”
Kasyanov, 64, joined a Kremlin opposition party after being fired by Putin and has become a vocal critic of the Russian government. He told AFP that he has been living outside of Russia, in an undisclosed location in Europe, since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
The former prime minister also said that he is convinced Russia could become a democratic state when Putin’s reign ends.
A “quasi-successor” controlled by Russian security services will eventually replace Putin, according to Kasyanov, but that successor will not be able to maintain control for long and will eventually be replaced by a leader chosen in free and fair elections, the former prime minister said.
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“I am certain that Russia will return to the path of building a democratic state,” Kasyanov said, adding that it will take about 10 years to conduct “de-Communisation” and “de-Putinisation” of the country.
Reestablishing ties with Europe will be a difficult process for a new Russian leader, according to Kasyanov, because of the damage done by Putin’s “criminal war.”
