| Summary/Abstract |
In late February and March 2014, shortly after the violent overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops to occupy the Crimean Peninsula, which had long been part of Ukraine. Putin’s subsequent annexation of Crimea sparked a bitter confrontation with Western governments and stoked deep anxiety in Central and Eastern Europe about the potential for Russian military encroachments elsewhere. Nowhere has this anxiety been more acute than in Poland and the three Baltic countries—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—where fears have steadily mounted as Russia has helped to fuel a civil war in eastern Ukraine while undertaking a series of military provocations in the Baltic region.
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