NATO’s Loss Is Russia’s Gain

Although the self-inflicted crisis within NATO over Greenland has exited its most acute phase with the alliance still intact, the effects of the crisis have real implications for European security and U.S. interests. The inevitable long-term damage to the alliance’s cohesion will make it more difficult for NATO to achieve its highest priorities of deterring Russian aggression, defending NATO territory, and supporting Ukraine. Moscow is making major progress on a long-term foreign policy goal—the weakening of NATO—without having to expend resources or being involved at all. Moreover, the timing could not be better for Russia: NATO’s political cohesion is falling while Russia’s core partnerships—particularly with China, North Korea, and Iran—have been strengthening and yielding significant benefits to Moscow. This is especially true in areas such as sanctions evasion and dual-use technology—both of which are critical to its performance on the battlefield in Ukraine.

An internal crisis forcing NATO onto its back foot offers significant upsides for Russia at relatively little cost. The resulting short- and long-term effects of the crisis will likely support Russian objectives in Ukraine and vis-a-vis NATO at a time when Russia’s own partnerships are deepening.

How Russian Elites See the Crisis 

Russia has long viewed NATO as a central threat to its interests. Therefore, the Kremlin sees driving a wedge between the United States and its European allies as critical to undermining the alliance and dulling its efficacy. Russia has probably assessed that it cannot win in a conventional military confrontation with NATO, and thus has prioritized other (mostly, asymmetric) means—including information campaigns—to weaken the alliance. But Moscow likely did not anticipate that it would make progress toward its goal without needing to commit time and resources to it. Nor could Russia have fathomed that progress toward that goal would come from within NATO, with the major ally, the United States, forcing the alliance to a crisis point.

Comments from Russian government officials and elites on NATO’s internal struggle, are marked by thinly veiled excitement. President Vladimir Putin waited to comment on the matter—probably purposefully, to allow the crisis to play out. When he did speak, he claimed that the dispute between the United States and its allies was “none of [Russia’s] concern.” Putin also took the opportunity to note that “Denmark has always treated Greenland as a colony and treated it quite harshly, if not cruelly.” His spokesperson noted drolly that Trump “will certainly go down in history” if he follows through with the annexation. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also questioned whether NATO could continue to exist “as a unified Western military-political bloc.” Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russia Direct Investment Fund and one of the key Kremlin interlocutors in the peace process with Ukraine, lauded the “collapse of the transatlantic union” in response to President Trump’s social media post threatening tariffs on several U.S. allies over their position on his Greenland annexation plans. The foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said that the crisis demonstrates the “failure of the so-called rules-based world order.” And the vice chairman of the Russian State Duma’s foreign affairs committee called the “deepening contradictions” between the United States and Europe “very good news for the rest of the world.” 

This is certainly not the first time the Russian elite have applauded Trump’s actions. Still, their overall views of the president have shifted since 2016. As Kadri Liik has argued, “Trump has gone from being a prospective partner to Putin in a post-American world to a relatively intractable counterpart who is also a harbinger and accelerant of the country’s decline.” 

If the Russian government initially thought that Trump’s return to office three years into its war in Ukraine would enable a peace deal on its terms, it was mistaken. Putin is still trying to keep Trump on his side via a negotiating channel with Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff. Although its Ukraine policy has been unpredictable, the Trump administration has continued some forms of support for Ukraine while seeking a peaceful resolution to the war. It has provided weapons, although not directly like the Biden administration did, but rather by selling them to NATO for onward transfer via the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List. And after initially pausing intelligence-sharing with Kyiv, Washington has also resumed providing critical information to support Ukraine’s effective strike campaign against Russian energy infrastructure.

While U.S. policy on Ukraine may not align with Russia’s or be actively detrimental to Russia’s goals, Trump’s undermining of NATO cohesion—potentially to the point of alliance dissolution—is an unexpected prize for Moscow. And all Putin needs to do to realize this goal is sit back and watch. Indeed, while Trump has been critical of the alliance, calling it “obsolete” in his first term, and skeptical of U.S. partnerships, his pursuit of Greenland (and the collateral damage that comes with it) is now actively undermining NATO and long-standing relationships with European countries. In this way, Trump is likely not considered as a tool that the Russians can exploit, but rather as a welcome fellow traveler helping to accelerate the decline of the West by his policies. Russia can watch as the alliance hollows itself out from within, perhaps seeking to nudge things along while avoiding taking steps that refocus the attention back on (and from the Russian perspective, threaten) Moscow.

Trump’s actions and rhetoric toward Greenland also serve as a useful tool for Russian narrative warping, with officials drawing parallels across themes such as self-determination, sovereignty, and anticolonialism. In the Russian government’s view, Trump’s threats against Greenland help to legitimize its public explanation for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Even before Trump’s 2025 inauguration, Lavrov highlighted the links between Trump’s earlier comments about buying Greenland. “I think to begin, it is necessary to listen to the Greenlanders,” Lavrov said at a press conference in January 2025. “Just as we, being neighbors with other islands, peninsulas, and lands, listened to the residents of Crimea, the Donbas, and Novorossiya to understand their attitude to a regime that came to power through an illegal coup d’etat, which was not accepted by [these] residents.”

Russian officials have also drawn a parallel between Trump’s claims about Greenland—perhaps selectively remembering that Trump’s argument for annexation rests partially on an alleged Russian threat there—and their claim that Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration poses a threat to Russia. Amid the current crisis, Lavrov has argued: “Crimea is no less important to the security of the Russian Federation than Greenland is to the United States.” His intent is likely not to convince, but rather to assert an equivalence: That U.S. security concerns, like Russia’s, may at times require territorial revisionism to address. Implicit here is a long-held Russian belief that great powers act as they want in the international system.

At the same time, Russian officials—despite Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, illegally and illegitimately annexing Crimea and fomenting a simmering conflict in the Donbas—have sought to represent their country as one that upholds the principle of sovereignty grounded in international law. Russia’s Press Secretary of the President Dmitry Peskov claimed that the government’s position “proceeded from the fact that Greenland is territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.” Zakharova argued that the crisis should be solved on the basis of international law while respecting the rights of the local population. And Lavrov put a finer point on Greenlanders’ self-determination by linking it directly to a broader set of anticolonial struggles against European countries, specifically the overseas territories of France and the United Kingdom.

Russian narratives are probably less about convincing Europeans—and especially Ukrainians, one-fifth of whose country is currently occupied—of Russia’s legitimacy as a protector of these values. Rather, Russian leaders are likely trying to reinforce their message to their domestic audience and to current and potential partners in the Global South: that the United States, the West more broadly, and the international order Western nations purport to defend are fundamentally flawed and hypocritical. 

What, then, is the Russian government likely to do going forward? Most likely, more of the same. It might intervene in discrete or obscure ways to help exacerbate divisions and amplify narratives it supports. In doing so, Moscow is likely to employ the same methods it has been using for over a decade to sow division within and among NATO members. These include “everything from meddling in our political processes, (undermining) the trust in our political institutions, disinformation, cyber-attacks (…) and sabotage actions against critical infrastructure,” as then-NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has explained. Ultimately, the Russian position seems to be that it is better to wait than to escalate, allowing NATO to hasten its own decline at Trump’s initiative. And while self-inflicted wounds distract and divide the alliance, Russia can achieve long-sought-after goals by remaining on the sidelines.

Implications for U.S. and European Security

Trump has reportedly accepted a “framework” for a future deal over Greenland while potentially taking the use of force off the table (for now). But the strategic effect is likely to be the long-term erosion of trust among U.S. allies. As Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who served as Denmark’s prime minister and NATO’s secretary general, has characterized it, the U.S. focus on Greenland represents a “weapon of mass distraction from the real threats,” chiefly that of Russia, and the resulting divisions within the alliance “play into Russian hands.” This outcome will yield both short- and long-term advantages to Russia in areas ranging from its war effort in Ukraine to its broader attempts to counter the West.

These benefits to Russia come at the cost of U.S. and transatlantic security. In the short term, intra-NATO tensions have already pulled the alliance’s attention away from critical Russia-related policy issues. First and foremost, supporting Ukraine has become more difficult. European countries—which have taken the lead on Ukraine for NATO at the Trump administration’s demand—have devoted considerable leadership bandwidth and political capital to counter the United States. They have also begun making trade-offs in asset and resource allocation to support this unplanned American challenge. For example, Denmark is planning a new rotational deployment to Greenland through at least 2026, redirecting forces that might otherwise be used to support the Coalition of the Willing bolstering Ukraine’s or Denmark’s presence along NATO’s eastern flank.

Beyond immediate resource diversion, the crisis has also shifted diplomatic incentives. Although NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, against the alliance “drop[ping] the ball” on Ukraine, the Greenland crisis reportedly delayed the planned announcement of an $800 billion postwar package to aid in Ukraine’s reconstruction. That an internal NATO crisis can impinge on its support for an external partner undercuts the alliance’s ability to signal long-term commitment to an issue. These distractions come amid a slew of recent Russian attacks with advanced weaponry that have pummeled Ukrainian civilian and energy infrastructure, including nuclear substations. Moreover, given Putin’s overture and recent statements by some European leaders that direct talks with Russia should resume, there is a risk that the Greenland crisis or future crises coupled with pressure from the Trump administration drives Europe—or at least some European countries—to accept a settlement with Moscow under duress and not in a manner that advances the bloc and NATO’s long-term interests. That is not to say Europe cannot—and indeed should not—play an even bigger role in peace negotiations with Russia, particularly given its lead role on Ukraine issues within the alliance. Further division within Europe and between Europeans and the United States, however, will not generate a strong negotiating position. What’s more, public opinion in Europe is trending away from seeking compromise to a hardened approach to America.

Even though the Greenland crisis did not end with the worst outcome of a U.S. invasion of an ally, the alliance is unlikely to return to the status quo ante, with lasting negative effects on NATO’s political cohesion. Trump has presented a series of escalating problems for NATO’s long-term viability since January 2025, building on his first-term approach to the alliance. Moreover, even assuming the allies find an acceptable solution for the Greenland issue, another crisis may begin shortly thereafter because Trump’s coercive approach to foreign policy does not distinguish between allies and adversaries—often treating the former worse than the latter.

To be sure, Trump’s approach has accelerated certain trends that predate his second term, including European allies taking their security more seriously and increasing defense spending in the aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. European public opinion is largely supportive of greater self-reliance. But the motivation for this acceleration now includes the need for greater autonomy as a hedge against U.S. coercion and unreliability, not merely to take on a greater share of Europe’s conventional defense.

However, as a result, the cumulative effect of these tensions is a NATO collective decision-making process that is slowed, stymied, or halted completely. And if the alliance’s decision-making ability is impeded, it may no longer be able to serve its current organizing principles, which are to deter and defend against Russian aggression. Here, the long-term effects of political disunity are particularly pronounced. The United States’s extended deterrence, including its nuclear capabilities, not only is capability based but also hinges on credibility—in terms of both assuring allies and deterring Russia. But will the allies believe in U.S. security guarantees when the United States is threatening to use force against them? Will Russia find future deterrent threats credible given the internal fracturing of the alliance? In the long term, then, an impaired NATO will only make it easier for Russia to advance its interests.

NATO’s increasing dysfunction comes at a time when Russia’s own partnerships are arguably the strongest they have been in recent memory. As the West began to rally around Kyiv following Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia sought to galvanize its own partners to support its war effort. While these partnerships are not collective defense arrangements, they have expanded in their depth and breadth to Russia’s benefit, particularly in security cooperation and sanctions evasion. For example, Iran has supplied Russia with both unmanned aerial systems and short-range ballistic missiles. Iran also provided Russia with the infrastructure and intelligence to manufacture some of these weapons domestically. North Korea has committed troops to the war effort, reportedly sending thousands of forces to fight on Russia’s behalf, while providing up to 50-60 percent of the artillery ammunition that Russia is using against Ukraine. Meanwhile, China has helped Russia economically—particularly via sanctions evasion and the circumvention of export controls, helping to support Russia’s defense industry—as well as militarily and politically. For example, Beijing has reportedly shared intelligence with Moscow. And just days before Russian forces began their invasion of Ukraine, Beijing and Moscow characterized their relationship as a “no-limits” strategic partnership—even if limitations do indeed exist. Xi Jinping recently called for a “grand plan” to increase cooperation between the two countries even further. Although the final outcome of the war will be a major determining factor in the future of Russia’s foreign and defense policy, NATO’s weakening cohesion will directly shape how effectively Russia can leverage these partnerships—both to sustain its war in Ukraine and to pursue its ambitions beyond. 

Ultimately, Moscow does not need NATO to collapse entirely to gain an advantage. It is benefiting instead from the growing asymmetry in its cohesion. Whether the United States, Denmark, and the rest of NATO reach an understanding on the future of Greenland, the crisis has already benefited Russia to the detriment of U.S. and European security.

– John Drennan, Ariane Tabatabai, Published courtesy of Lawfare.