On Friday ( April 11 ), Estonia seized one of Russia’s” shadow fleet” vessels and, just two days later, approved a new law allowing it to use force to sink such ships if they pose a threat to national security.
The first was labeled as” state-sponsored piracy,” according to RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, while Nikolai Patrushev, the senior adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, speculated that Britain might be behind the second.
At the time of writing, Russia has not yet taken a significant stance against this most recent offense. The seizure occurred as part of Trump’s next meeting with Putin, which follows Soviet envoy Kirill Dmitriev’s efforts to break the impasse over Ukraine during his previous week in Washington, DC.
The political approach of the Russian-US discussions on correcting relationships and, consequently, ending their substitute war in Ukraine is back on a positive note, which upsets German warhawks like the UK. Therefore, it can be concluded that Patrushev is definitely correct because London does indeed have a desire to sabotage this.
In order to inspire Russia into a military response by seizing one of its alleged” dark ship,” mischievously timed as it was during Witkoff’s most recent trip to Russia, it makes perfect sense for the UK to encourage its German partner, in whose country it has little less than 1, 000 troops.
Russia’s reaction will likely remain physically restrained despite that fact, even if it quickly launches a political attack against Estonia and the UK. Moscow does this because it doesn’t want to slide into London’s pit.
Putin might hope that Trump can put pressure on the UK and Estonia to stop making any more provocative remarks, apparently by telling them (either informally or secretly ) that they won’t be able to defend NATO’s Article 5 security guarantees in the event of future seizure that lead to armed conflict of any kind with Russia.
The foundation for this plan is in what US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated in an early February statement about how the US won’t grant these same offers to NATO forces in Ukraine.
The US might even say that it will withdraw its troops from Estonia if this happens repeatedly, whether in parallel with or in its place, but that would have the opposite effect, causing the UK to lose its everlasting appearance there.
The result would be that, in the wake of Germany’s recent establishment of a continuous base in Lithuania, no profit to the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act could be made as Putin wants.
If France replicates its circular presence in Romania with similar results, Western Europe’s three standard Great Powers may basically be moving eastward to stop Trump from possible reaching a deal with Putin to restore the NATO-Russia Founding Act.
This is consistent with what was previously said in this evaluation: The US is unlikely to withdraw its troops from Central and Eastern Europe, making these improvements a part of their struggle for leadership in post-conflict Europe.
Russia and the US may not be able to stop this because the earliest didn’t use force in response to such low-level intra-NATO deployments, no matter how intimidating it may be, while the next has lost command over its rebel German, British, and European allies.
In any case, the relevance of this scenario to Estonia, which is supported by the British, is that a strong political reaction from Moscow could be used to justifiably justify the UK doing this.
Even if this most recent action doesn’t sabotage the Russian-US talks ‘ positive trajectory, the decision may have already been made to complicate the Russian-US rapprochement and put it in opposition to its traditional Western European Great Power counterparts.
Despite its extreme political bent, a militarily restrained response from Russia could make the UK’s potential establishment of a permanent military presence in Estonia appear provocative by removing the primary pretext.
Russia could at least be able to present it as a destabilizing move to the world public despite the fact that the outcome would remain unchanged, that is, that it could happen regardless of what.
That’s better than Moscow falling for London’s trap by issuing credible military threats against Tallinn that could lead to the reversal of recent advances in ties with Washington and even provoking a rally against NATO against Russia. If Putin doesn’t want to go to war over this, then it’s the best course of action right now, assuming there are other unfortunate events.
In that case, the US stance toward Article 5 in this regard would be crucial, as he might eventually overcome his innate reluctance to escalate , just as he did when he did  in late November when authorizing the use of his nation’s top-secret medium-range hypersonic Oreshnik missiles.
Repeat incidents would only occur if the US were unable or unwilling to exert any influence over Estonia, which was supported by the United States. Therefore, it may either withhold or explicitly reaffirm these defense guarantees.
Trump’s choice will ultimately depend on whether he will eventually grow resentful toward Putin because he has been unwilling to significantly compromise andnbsp, on andnbsp, his highest goals.
He already, right before Dmitriev’s most recent trip, and once more posted about them during Witkoff’s visit on Friday in an effort to possibly support upcoming seizures as a form of pressure on Russia. That would be a very dangerous way to “escalate to de-escalate” on better terms for Ukraine.
Since Putin couldn’t step down and Russia reportedly lost the significant budgetary revenue it reportedly receives from its” shadow fleet’s” Baltic activities, as well as face-loss, it could very well escalate.
However, as of right now, everything is still manageable, but that could change. Even though Putin’s patience has its limits, Russia’s restrained response to Estonia’s provocative naval seizure is pragmatic.
This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Substack and is republished with kind permission. Subscribe to the Andrew Korybko Newsletter here.