Garry Kasparov warns Putin could seize NATO border town to test alliance

Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion, warned on July 15 that Vladimir Putin could provoke NATO by seizing a small border town after September’s parliamentary elections.

What did Kasparov say?

Kasparov told *Politico* that Putin has no intention of making peace with Ukraine. Instead, mounting pressure on Russia will push Putin to escalate, not compromise. Any deal short of a Russian defeat, he argued, would only buy Moscow time to regroup. "Putin always escalated when he felt he was in trouble … the most natural escalation is the provocation," Kasparov said.

Where could Putin strike?

The chess legend pointed to NATO’s eastern flank-Latvia or Estonia-as potential targets. He suggested Putin might grab a small border town, especially one with a Russian-speaking population, to test whether the alliance would respond. If the US failed to defend the country under attack, Kasparov argued, Putin would have proved his point: "NATO is no longer there."

Why does Kasparov’s warning matter now?

Kasparov is among the Kremlin’s most prominent exiled critics. His forecast follows remarks by NATO chief Mark Rutte, who admitted days earlier that "nobody" knows how to bring Putin to the negotiating table as Russia’s full-scale invasion grinds into its fifth year. Kasparov became undisputed world chess champion at 22 and ranks among the game’s greatest players.

What’s Kasparov’s broader stance on the war?

He urged Europe to abandon compromise and commit fully to a Ukrainian victory. Ukrainian strikes inside Russia, he said, are already pressuring the country’s power brokers. "Our best hope is to separate Putin from the elites," Kasparov stated. "Ukrainians are doing a very good job because every time they hit something, someone loses money."

Kasparov also pressed the EU to tighten sanctions and ban tourist visas for Russian citizens. "We have to make sure Putin loses," he concluded. "Because the moment Putin loses the war, he goes down."

What’s the evidence behind his claims?

Kasparov cited Ukraine’s 2026 campaign that has battered Russia’s refining sector. By mid-May, drone attacks forced nearly every major refinery in central Russia to halt or cut output. Facilities with combined capacity over 83 million metric tons-about a quarter of national refining-were knocked offline. The Kirishi plant, one of Russia’s largest at 20 million tons annually, shut on May 5. The Kstovo refinery, processing 17 million tons, was struck on May 20.

Kasparov is one of 10 Russian democratic opposition figures in the Council of Europe’s Platform for Dialogue with Russian Democratic Forces.