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June 9, 2026
Imagine this: terrorists take 900 people hostage. They have political demands, offer to release 10 people a day. They name the opposition MP they’re ready to talk to. The MP agrees—but the president stops him, afraid the MP’s rating might rise…
That president was Vladimir Putin, and the opposition MP was Boris Nemtsov. The 2002 Nord-Ost theatre siege was one of the moments that came to define Putin’s presidency.
He chose to use a fentanyl-based gas to knock out the terrorists and then sent in special forces to kill them off.
The problem: the gas didn’t selectively work on terrorists only—it also affected hostages. The medics who went in didn’t know how to revive them because they weren’t given an antidote.
130 people ended up dying, and we don’t know how many more could’ve been saved had Nemtsov been allowed to negotiate.
The terrorists demanded an end to the war in Chechnya, but Putin refused to let anyone negotiate with them, not for some noble motivations, but because he was worried about political competition.
It was his chief of staff who told Nemtsov that the reason was raising ratings and nothing else:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT-saOUueKs&t=1s
A few years later, Putin would appoint Ramzan Kadyrov, a former bandit who bragged that he killed his first Russian at the age of 16, to rule over Chechnya and Chechens with little regard for the Russian constitution or human rights.
And Nemtsov would be killed in 2015 just metres away from the Kremlin by people linked to Kadyrov:
This is just one example of the lengths Putin is willing to go to in order to eliminate from public view those who might challenge him.
There’s a reason why, in the fifth year of the war in Ukraine, we don’t see a single popular military commander—the moment anyone starts to become popular, they’re moved out of the spotlight.
This raises a question: how firm is Putin’s grip on power? Is there anyone or anything that can take him down?
For an answer, join the NEST Centre experts John Lough, Ella Paneyakh, and Nikolai Petrov on Zoom. Moderated by Bridget Kendall, they’ll give you a sober view of the state of Putin’s regime you will not hear elsewhere:
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__aNRuaeXQNChO6TGvVJCWw#/registration
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Imagine a foreign government doesn’t like what your country is doing, and decides to change it. Without asking you.
That’s what Putin is doing in the Baltic states. He just got his first big win in Latvia.
On May 7, Ukrainian drones, pushed off course by Russian electronic warfare, entered Latvia from Russia. One exploded at an oil depot in Rēzekne: four empty fuel tanks were destroyed — luckily, no one was hurt.
You’d think that should have been the end of it — instead, three days later, Latvia’s defense minister resigned. Four days after that, the government collapsed altogether.
Essentially, a NATO country’s cabinet was removed from power by a hybrid operation conducted by the Kremlin.
You don’t need tanks to change a democratic government in the 21st century. All you need is patience, a degree of deniability, and a system that holds its leaders accountable when something goes wrong.
Putin understands this, and Latvia is proof that his theory works.
Events like this are called gray zone activities — provocations small enough that NATO cannot call them an ‘armed attack’ under Article 5, but large enough to trigger a domestic crisis in any given country.
By the time each incident is investigated, the next one has already happened: there have been nearly 40 such incidents in the Baltic states since the start of 2025, with eleven of them in May 2026 alone, and the rate is accelerating as Putin is stymied in Ukraine.
Why now? In a recent NEST Centre briefing, former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis pointed to a pattern: when Putin is cornered, he escalates — to raise the stakes and see what the West will tolerate.
On May 19, Russia’s UN ambassador told the Security Council that Ukraine was launching drones at Russia from Latvian territory — and warned that NATO membership ‘would not protect’ Latvia from retaliation. It was a fabrication that both Riga and NATO have publicly rejected.
Unfortunately, the lies don’t stop when they’re rejected. When amplified in targeted disinformation campaigns, high-profile platforms like the UN Security Council give them credibility and strengthen them.
These Kremlin narratives often follow a shared path, something like: Telegram channels → Russian state TV → Western expert commentary that characterises what Russia says as ‘not implausible.’ By simply granting these Russian narratives consideration, these ‘fakesperts’ launder them into mainstream discourse:
This is why I say Putin is a bandit, who only understand force, and reads hesitation as permission. But I want to be careful with one distinction: while escalation may be Putin’s frequent response when cornered, it is not his automatic one.
He has backed off before: in November 2022, facing a Ukrainian counteroffensive he could not break, Putin pulled out of Kherson. Whether he escalates or retreats depends on the speed and force of the Western response. So far, that response has been slow.
Watch the full NEST Centre Midweek Briefing with John Lough
and Gabrielius Landsbergis here:
And follow to stay informed on what Russia is doing in the Baltics, and what the West can still do to stop it.
“Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis pointed to a pattern: when Putin is cornered, he escalates — to raise the stakes and see what the West will tolerate.”
Cue some nuclear sabre rattling. He first did it in 2014 and it worked. Hence he and his butt boy Medvedev have been doing it ever since …