Pentagon asks Baltic states to soften rhetoric on Russia, Reuters reports

The Pentagon has asked several NATO members, including Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, to tone down public rhetoric about the threat from Russia, Reuters reported, citing four people familiar with the matter. US officials argued that some statements by European leaders had undermined the continent's security, the sources said.

The requests were delivered in bilateral meetings, according to Reuters, though it was not clear whether similar messages reached other European governments. Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, who is leading a review of US troop levels in Europe, was named as one of the officials who conveyed the message, the sources said.

One source said Colby told a Baltic official that Europeans should avoid "poking" Russia, pointing to public comments describing Moscow as "cornered like a rat" as unhelpful. Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal used that phrase about President Vladimir Putin in late September, arguing Russia was turning to sabotage in Europe because its invasion of Ukraine had stalled.

A Pentagon official told Reuters that "private conversations among allies are just that", declining to comment further. Defence ministries in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia did not respond to Reuters, and NATO also declined to comment.

The messages come as the Trump administration restarts efforts to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, combining potential sanctions relief for Russia with pressure on Kyiv to halt strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, Reuters reported. One European official called the Pentagon's advice baffling, noting that Baltic intelligence services have themselves played down the likelihood of Russia testing NATO's mutual-defence guarantee, while other NATO intelligence services have warned Moscow could escalate sabotage operations.

Reuters said Moscow has recently stepped up deniable attacks on NATO states. German prosecutors said this week that two Belarusians were arrested on suspicion of planning to set fire to a building or infrastructure site near Nuremberg, and Germany blamed Russia in September for a drone incident at Leipzig/Halle airport, an allegation Moscow denies.