Russia is preparing “something big” before the end of the year, Poland’s foreign minister has warned, raising fresh concerns in European capitals that Moscow could seek to test NATO through a carefully calibrated escalation.
Radosław Sikorski said Poland had received information from multiple sources indicating that Russia was preparing a significant operation, although he declined to identify the intelligence behind the assessment.
“We are receiving information (…) we are not revealing the sources, but there are many [of them], that Russia is preparing something big this year,” Sikorski told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
His warning comes as European governments have increased preparations for potential Russian activity below the threshold of full-scale war, including sabotage, cyber attacks, drone operations and other forms of hybrid warfare.
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Sikorski suggested one possible scenario could involve Moscow manufacturing a pretext for another wave of mobilisation.
“I believe that Putin needs a pretext for mobilisation, so they could carry out a false-flag attack and tell the Russian people: ‘We are under attack, and therefore we need to mobilise,’” he said.
The Polish foreign minister did not specify what form the alleged operation could take or where it might occur.
His remarks nevertheless come against a backdrop of increasingly explicit warnings from European intelligence officials that Russia could attempt to exploit weaknesses in NATO’s political cohesion.
Danish intelligence has warned of a “low but growing risk” of a limited Russian military attack against one or more NATO states bordering Russia, while European security officials have separately raised concerns about Moscow using drones, missiles or limited incursions to test the alliance without immediately triggering a full-scale confrontation.
Sikorski said a direct invasion of a NATO country would be an irrational move for Moscow, but argued that a more ambiguous operation could be designed to create divisions within the alliance and make a collective response more difficult.
Russia would be “crazy” to launch a full-scale invasion of a NATO country, he said, adding that Moscow could instead pursue actions designed to remain below the threshold required to trigger NATO’s Article 5 mutual-defence commitment.
The Baltic states could be particularly vulnerable, Sikorski warned, given the presence of Russian-speaking minorities in the region.
He also raised concerns about Belarus, one of Moscow’s closest allies, saying that “Belarusians are very concerned about being drawn into the war.”
The comments followed Sikorski’s meeting with Belarusian Foreign Minister Maksym Ryzhenkov on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. The meeting was reportedly the first between the two countries’ foreign ministers since 2016.
Belarus allowed Russian forces to use its territory as a launchpad for the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and is hosting Russian nuclear weapons, but Minsk has not formally committed its own forces to the war.
Sikorski also warned that Russia’s economic difficulties may not be sufficient to force an end to its war effort.
He said Moscow could potentially continue fighting for another year or two “unless Ukraine destroys more than half of its refinery capacity”.
“Russia believes it still has two cards to play: mobilisation and a harsh winter, as well as the destruction of Ukraine’s energy grid, heating systems and major companies,” he said.
Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian oil refineries and strategic infrastructure with long-range strikes, seeking to disrupt the fuel supplies and industrial capacity underpinning Moscow’s war machine.
Russia, meanwhile, has continued attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as winter approaches.
The latest warnings leave European governments facing a difficult calculation: how to strengthen deterrence against potential Russian escalation without turning intelligence assessments into predictions of an attack that has not been confirmed.
For Poland, which shares borders with both Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave and Belarus, the issue is particularly acute. Warsaw has become one of the leading advocates within NATO for stronger eastern-flank defences as the war in Ukraine enters another winter.
Sikorski’s warning adds to a growing body of European intelligence assessments that Moscow may seek opportunities to probe the alliance’s resolve. What remains unclear is what the Polish minister’s sources believe Russia is preparing — and whether any operation will ultimately materialise.
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