New U.S. intelligence assessments indicate Russian President Vladimir Putin could attempt to test the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s resolve with a limited assault on an allied nation within the next several years, according to U.S. officials familiar with the reports. The scenarios under consideration range from a cyberattack to a small-scale land incursion, with officials estimating any such move could come between this fall and 2029.
The assessments mark a shift from earlier U.S. thinking, which held that Putin would avoid provoking NATO while Russian forces remained tied down in Ukraine. That calculus changed earlier this year, officials said, as Putin faces mounting pressure both on the battlefield and at home to deliver a decisive victory. Ukrainian drone strikes have inflicted escalating damage on Russia’s military and its oil industry, even as Russian forces continue to grind out smaller territorial gains at a steep cost in casualties.
U.S. and European officials say they are increasingly seeing signs of Russian probing activity along NATO’s eastern flank, including Russian cruise missiles landing in Poland and drones crossing into Romanian airspace. Putin’s objective in testing NATO while still fighting in Ukraine, officials said, would be to fracture the alliance and expose divisions between Washington and its European partners.
“The question mark is how the United States would respond in that case,” said Heather Conley, senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, describing a possible Russian incursion. “It has always been a goal [of Russia’s] to challenge the credibility of NATO and to separate the United States from its allies.”
With Putin unable to secure the battlefield gains he wants in Ukraine, U.S. intelligence officials have been examining whether Moscow intends to escalate its posture toward European allies in the near term. Officials said the underlying concern is that Putin could become more unpredictable, not less, as he is backed further into a corner.
From Cyberattacks to a Land Incursion
The range of possible Russian actions identified in the assessments spans a cyberattack on a NATO member, the deployment of unmarked armed groups to seize territory, or a limited incursion along the alliance’s eastern flank. Of these, a direct land incursion is considered the least likely scenario, though officials said its probability rises the longer the war in Ukraine continues.
A land incursion has historically been viewed as extremely improbable because it would trigger Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the collective-defense clause committing all member states to respond to an attack on one. Article 5 has been invoked only once in NATO’s history, following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The clause is considerably murkier, however, when it comes to cyber or hybrid attacks that fall short of conventional military force.
“This has always been NATO’s challenge to respond to a sub-Article Five attack, and it’s been very true that to this point, NATO allies have preferred not to escalate,” Conley said. She pointed to Russia’s 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia as a precedent, noting that Tallinn ultimately chose to manage that crisis on a bilateral basis rather than invoking collective alliance measures.
Spokesmen for the Defense Department and NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe declined to discuss the sensitive intelligence. A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to a request for comment. NATO spokesman Col. Martin O’Donnell said the alliance remains prepared. “We are always thinking through and preparing for any number of scenarios. NATO is watching and we are ready to deter and defend as necessary, which we continue to demonstrate,” he said.
A Pattern of Incursions Along NATO’s Eastern Flank
The new assessments follow a string of incidents over the past year that have tested the alliance’s eastern members. In September 2025, Poland detected a swarm of at least 19 Russian drones entering its airspace overnight, prompting Polish and allied fighter jets to scramble and, in some cases, shoot the drones down — the first direct engagement between NATO military assets and Russian hardware over alliance territory since the war began. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk denounced the incursion as “unprecedented,” warning it brought the region “closer to open conflict than at any time since World War II,” and Poland invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty to request urgent consultations with allies.
Romania has faced repeated incursions of its own. In late May 2026, a Russian drone crashed into an apartment building in the city of Galati, injuring two people in what Romanian officials said was the first time civilians there had been harmed during the war. Of roughly 29 drone incursions recorded in Romania since the war began in February 2022, more than half — some 16 — occurred in just the first five months of 2026. U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker called the strike a “reckless incursion” and said the alliance “will defend every inch of NATO territory,” while the European Commission moved toward another round of sanctions on Moscow.
Poland has also continued to report violations well into the summer. In late July 2026, a Russian missile linked to an overnight barrage against Ukraine crossed into Polish airspace, prompting NATO jets to scramble. The Baltic states have not been spared either: drone incursions from Russia contributed to a government collapse in Latvia earlier this year, underscoring how the spillover from the Ukraine war has begun to strain domestic politics in frontline NATO countries.
A Munitions Shortfall Complicates the Picture
The intelligence assessments about Putin’s intentions arrive alongside separate, and compounding, concerns among U.S. officials about depleted stockpiles of critical munitions. Years of weapons transfers to Ukraine, combined with more recent expenditures in the U.S. conflict with Iran, have severely reduced American reserves of systems that would be essential to repelling a land invasion or defending against missile and drone attacks.
At-risk stockpiles include long-range Precision Strike Missiles and Army Tactical Missile Systems — both fired from the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — along with short-range Stinger surface-to-air missiles, according to officials. Also depleted are supplies of Patriot, SM-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors, as well as THAAD radars and air-defense artillery units. Tom Karako of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the Precision Strike Missile, ATACMS and Stinger systems in particular would be crucial to repelling any land invasion.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell disputed characterizations of a munitions shortage as false. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the U.S. military had “more than enough” munitions to “serve all of President Trump’s strategic goals,” adding that the president has pressed defense contractors to ramp up production. Parnell was more pointed in his own response: “We have everything required to strike at the time and place of the President’s choosing. Across multiple combatant commands, we have already executed successful operations while maintaining a deep, ready arsenal to defend our people and our interests. Any adversary who confuses media noise with American weakness will discover the truth the hard way.”
Iran, China and the Strain on U.S. Stockpiles
The debate over munitions reserves has taken on added urgency as the Trump administration weighs its next steps regarding Iran. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned the White House about the shrinking supply of air-defense interceptors, a concern first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Caine has said the reduced inventories would not prevent a resumption of major combat operations against Iran but would meaningfully raise the risk involved.
A recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies examined seven key munitions expended during the conflict with Iran, estimating that the U.S. has used between 1,060 and 1,430 Patriot missiles, leaving as few as 870 in the American arsenal. Mark Cancian, a co-author of the CSIS report, said the depletion is manageable in isolation but far more concerning in a broader strategic context. “If it’s just a question of fighting Iran, even though we’ve used half of the interceptors, a little more, we still have half of them left. So we could go on against Iran for quite some time,” Cancian said. “The problem is that the Pentagon is now very worried about what this does in the Western Pacific with China.”
Analysts outside government have warned repeatedly that munitions spent in the Middle East could undercut the United States’ ability to deter adversaries in other theaters, Russia and China chief among them. That warning now converges directly with the new intelligence assessments on Putin: a Kremlin weighing whether to test NATO’s Article 5 commitment would be doing so at a moment when American stockpiles built to counter exactly that scenario are already stretched thin by two other fronts.
What Comes Next
For now, U.S. and NATO officials describe the assessments as a warning rather than a prediction of an imminent attack. But the timeline attached to the intelligence — a window stretching from this fall through 2029 — places the alliance on a multiyear watch, even as it continues to absorb smaller-scale incidents involving Russian drones and missiles along its eastern border. Whether those incidents represent genuine “probing attacks,” as U.S. officials have characterized them, or the ordinary friction of a war being fought next door to NATO territory remains a matter of debate among analysts, but the pattern has been consistent enough to keep the alliance on heightened alert through the summer of 2026.