2017 Predictions: Donald Trump’s Presidential Victory Could Lead To World War 3 As Emboldened Russia Attacks Baltic States

The 2017 predictions are looking grim for Europe, with fears that Donald Trump’s presidency and his relationship with Vladimir Putin will lead to World War 3 in the Baltic states.

Over the course of the last several years, Putin and Russia have taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward their Baltic neighbors. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region and has undertaken military measures that rattled NATO neighbors, with some growing fearful that Putin may have plans to encroach further into the Baltic states.

Those fears are growing greater with the election of Donald Trump as America’s next president, with predictions that 2017 could lead to more aggression from Russia.

As Bloomberg noted, the deteriorating relationship between the United States and Russia during Vladimir Putin’s reign led to greater tension in this region.

“But now there’s a different reason for worry. Campaign proclamations by Donald Trump that NATO states must pay more for defense, his ambivalence about Crimea, and allusions to how America may not defend members against Russian military action had already unnerved many before Nov. 8. Now that this self-professed fan of Vladimir Putin is headed for the White House, the wonder on both sides of the border is what happens next.”

And Russian news outlets have done their part to spread predictions of World War 3 in 2017, Bloomberg added.

“Over the past month, Russian TV channels widely watched in the Baltics filled airtime with apocalyptic rhetoric about world war,” the report noted, adding. “Russia recently made a show of moving short-range, nuclear-capable Iskander missiles into its militarized Baltic exclave, Kaliningrad, wedged between Lithuania, Poland, and the Baltic Sea. And a recent military exercise near the Latvian border involved Russian servicemen using loudspeakers to call on NATO soldiers to surrender.”

There is further tension after Russia’s alleged interference with with 2016 presidential election. Intelligence agencies in the United States concluded that the Russian government was behind a hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta, in order to spill embarrassing secrets about Clinton. This was done with the intention of helping Trump win the election, the agencies concluded.

Donald Trump has continued his relationship with Vladimir Putin after the 2016 election, with Putin even sending a letter to Trump asking to “restore the framework of bilateral cooperation” with the United States. The United States has imposed a series of harsh sanctions on Russia for its actions in Crimea and aggression with Baltic States.

The letter was well-received by Donald Trump, who said that Putin’s “thoughts are so correct.”

“I hope both sides are able to live up to these thoughts, and we do not have to travel an alternate path,” he said (via the Washington Times).

Trump had given public compliments to Putin’s leadership style during the campaign, and even publicly encouraged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s email. Putin also offered public praise of Donald Trump.

The 2017 predictions of World War 3 in the Baltic states are not too far-fetched to some national security experts. The Rand Corporation, a group connected to the U.S. Army, issued a report this year that NATO’s military assets in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were so mismatched that Russia could overthrown the entire region in a little more than a day, the Independent noted.

“With Russia outnumbering NATO ground battalions by almost two to one, and possessing much heavier weaponry than the Baltic defense forces, some simulations had the capitals falling in as little as 36 hours from the start of hostilities,” the report claimed.

Other experts have hinted the 2017 predictions of World War 3 are right on the mark. Dmitri V. Trenin, a former Russian army officer now leading the Carnegie Moscow Center, told the Boston Globe that Vladimir Putin is determined to return Russia to a place of being a major power.

[Featured Image by Host photo agency/RIA Novosti via Getty Images]