Is Russia fighting NATO by sabotaging 'green movement' in Baltic states?

Leaked documents indicate that Russia is attempting to sabotage environmental campaign activities in the Baltic in order to increase its influence and sway public opinion against NATO's military deployment. Moscow's freedom to manoeuvre in the area has shrunk as Finland joined the alliance, Sweden is getting ready to do the same, and the three Baltic states have built up their military defences, The Times reported

The Baltic Sea has historically been of great strategic importance to Russia, not least because its ports are crucial for trade. Plans to try to rebuild the Kremlin's position in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, which were created for one of President Putin's closest advisers and made public last week by a number of European news sources, however, exposed the limits on what the Kremlin can actually accomplish in the region.

Challenges of The Baltics, Russia relations

The Kremlin has failed to increase its influence over the Baltic economies or to fortify pro-Russian political parties there. Moscow is attempting to capitalise on worries over the sea's ecological destruction, the leaks suggest. The creation of a Russian front body called the Baltic Platform is suggested in a strategy document that appears to have been given to Putin's administration four or five months ago in order to capitalise on concerns about environmental damage, The Times reported.

Over the past few decades, a number of marine species have gone locally extinct due to heavy industrial pollution, overfishing, and global warming. However, it appears that there are at least two additional goals. The first goal is to increase Russia's contacts with businesses, politicians, researchers, and civil society organisations in the area in order to lay the foundation for later influence and espionage operations, according to Aleksander Toots, the deputy head of Estonia's domestic intelligence agency, known as KAPO. The second was to attribute the majority of the harm to the West, the "Anglo-Saxon" world, and hence NATO, according to the papers.

The Presidential Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, a Kremlin think tank that answers to Dmitry Kozak, Putin's deputy chief of staff, created the leaked plans. They may or may not have become official government policy, but several security organisations in the regions claimed they were consistent with earlier Russian strategies, The Times reported.