The Kremlin has drawn up a series of plans to determine how it can exert its influence in the Baltics over the coming years.. This is evidenced by the leak of documents from the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin..

According to Newsweek, these documents were published by the Swedish edition of Expressen, as well as Yahoo News and others.. Before Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian officials warned for years that Russia could start a war.. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov in January called Poland and the three Baltic countries "

Newsweek writes that the strategies were developed by the Office for Cross-Border Cooperation of the Presidential Administration of Russia. The same agency prepared another document, which stated that the Kremlin plans to absorb Belarus until 2030 through the project of the so-called “Union State”.

About 300,000 ethnic Russians live in Estonia, which is about 24% of the population. About 471 thousand ethnic Russians live in Latvia (25% of the population) and in Lithuania - 140 thousand Russians (5% of the country's population).

The key issue for the Kremlin is to reduce the presence of the NATO military alliance in the countries of the former Soviet Union with the strengthening of Russian influence and culture..

“The documents talk about the creation of associations and organizations that can covertly promote pro-Russian narratives and spread Russian culture.. Propaganda should claim discrimination against Russian-speakers, and Russian-speaking students should be invited to Russia. At the same time, demolition or relocation of Soviet-era World War II monuments must be prevented..

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Russian documents also say that in Estonia businessmen should be offered lucrative contracts.

“We need to work with Estonian businessmen, explaining to them the readiness of the Russian Federation to open the Russian market for them, provided that Tallinn changes its foreign policy to a more pro-Moscow one,” one of the Russian documents says..

According to Expressen, one of the strategic documents suggests that Russia intends to use the dependence of the Baltic countries on its electricity grid as leverage, pointing to the risk of shutting down Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania..

The Baltic countries are part of the BRELL power grid, which is controlled by Moscow. However, they are preparing to synchronize their systems with continental Europe in early 2026..

The document on Lithuania states that Russia will create "

Russian plans also suggest that Lithuania should be prevented from receiving NATO-related air defense assets, and the number and scale of the alliance’s operational and combat exercises in the country should be reduced.. Darius Jauniskis, head of the Lithuanian Security Service, told Expressen that Russia often tries to use its military power to put pressure on other countries..

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The Kremlin’s plans for Latvia mention the “containment of NATO” and the creation by 2025 of a school in Riga, “which will become the center of strengthening the positions of the Russian language, literature and culture”. Moscow wants Russian to become the state language in the country by 2030. Yahoo News notes that both Estonia and Latvia have recently adopted language reforms that will eventually ban Russian language teaching in kindergartens and schools..

In February, the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service said that Russia could exert " According to her, Russia considers them "