This is The Wall Street Journal article from August 6, 2026 that the above Deutsche Welle article is referencing. DW did so without linking WSJ directly; I had to go find it manually, but fortunately a number of outlets reported on it.

The original WSJ report is far more nuanced than this headline might indicate, and talks about the possibility of a Russian attack on NATO over the coming years. One of the more credible things it said is

Putin’s goal in attacking NATO during a continuing war with Ukraine, if it happens, would be to fracture the alliance, the U.S. officials said. “The question mark is how the United States would respond in that case,” said Heather Conley, senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, on 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.”

It's a good article. For those who'd like to read the original, here are the links:

U.S. Intel Finds Putin Could Test NATO’s Resolve With Limited Incursion -- The Wall Street Journal (behind paywall)

Archive link -- there are known problems with the site but it has the content; use at your own discretion

loosing war

Opens another front

Surely this will fix things

any article with a hypothetical in the headline is ABSOLUTE GARBAGE and I refuse to read them.

Russia COULD attack NATO next month .... or it could disintegrate tomorrow just like the USSR

https://tenor.com/view/gino-d'acampo-gino-dacampo-this-morning-grandmother-wheels-gif-1270420353161197650

Please recall that the CIA and like organizations have been doing this for about 70 years. It's how they get their budgets increased. Their massive black budgets that we are not allowed to know about.

Recommend "Legacy of Ashes" by Weiner. The CIA hates this book, and used to specifically attack it on their website. The absolute best possible endorsement, in my opinion.

No matter how bad you think it is, it's worse.

This doesn't make any sense. NATO is much stronger than it was before the war. Russia is much weaker.

The Baltic States started the war isolated, partially surrounded by Russia. Today they sit in a NATO lake that can not only support the Baltics, but threaten St Petersburg.

Russia would have to defend a front stretching from the Black sea to the Arctic sea.

Even if the US declined to help, Russia starts in a position of great weakness. And worse still, everyone knows it.

According to a Wall Street Journal report citing US intelligence

Yeah OK, you can stop reading there. Two of the biggest propaganda outlets in the western world, both hawkish, would fucking love an open war with Russia and have been saying it's imminent for decades.

This scenario is a right wing fantasy.

That's a bold strategy cotton...

I look forward to seeing a red stain on the streets of Moscow knowing it used to be Putin

Not gonna lie, I kinda hope they do.

Kick their fucking asses once and for all.

NATO should have made a no fly zone over Ukraine years ago. Call their pissant little bluff. Red lines my asshole.

I personally feel as the Ukraine conflict drags on Russia will throw a hail Mary, get its ass completely kicked and Putin either tops himself or is off'd by his own.

Analysts cited in the report suggest Vladimir Putin may seek to open a new front rather than risk being remembered as the leader who lost Ukraine

Does Putin play Weiqi/Baduk/Go? A common strategy when a player is losing in one part of the board is for them to open up new "fronts" in other areas of the board, hoping that they're more successful in one of these other areas and that this will yield a new advantage in the original area they had been losing in. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't; what it usually comes down to is whether they're able to "read" the game further ahead than the opponent, in the hopes that the opponent won't see how developments in Area B will affect Area A.