Date: September 2026.
Evidence:
This week, the CIA director went to Moscow to meet his Russian counterpart. Irrespective of their seniority, the goal of civil servants is to coordinate political decisions with practical realities. This may happen through execution whose effects are underwhelming considering the original political decision. This may also happen through reorganizing resources in order to meet the political expectations.
The speculations regarding what the two senior civil servants talked about were ripe with issues that had been there for months: Russian cyberattacks on NATO member states, Russian drones or missiles in NATO air space, etc. There was only one novelty, that had not occurred yet: Russia sending soldiers into a Baltic state.
The CIA director went to Moscow to bring his Russian counterpart to implement that invasion in a way that effectively will feel less significant than it sounds. We know that he was unable to meet Putin directly. This means that the political decision was already locked in. There will be Russian soldiers in a Baltic state.
It is anyone's guess whether these soldiers are official Russian soldiers or their underwhelming version, that is, Russian proxies posing as local citizens wanting to somehow defect from their Baltic country. My prediction is that these will be official Russian soldiers because Russia has shown absolutely zero restraint since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The CIA director also went in person to signal to his organisation that there would be a reorganization of available resources.
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