Estonia warns of limiteEstonia warns of limited Russian attack on Ukrained Russian attack on Ukraine

Russia could launch a “limited attack” on Ukraine that would avoid large cities, Estonia's intelligence agency said on Wednesday.

Mikk Marran, director-general of the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service, noted a Russian attack would include “missile bombardment and the occupation of key terrain”, reported.

Marran made the comments while presenting his agency's annual report. “Right now, our assessment is that they would avoid cities with large populations, as it takes a lot of troops to control those areas. But there is no clear understanding of what avenue the Russian troops might exploit,” Marran was quoted as saying by news.

Marran also referred to the possibility of an escalation in fighting in the two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, which refer to themselves as Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic. Marran said such an escalation in the two regions was “highly likely” and “Russia likely gets plausible deniability and avoids sanctions.”

Marran warned of increasing pressure on the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. “If Russia is successful in Ukraine, it would encourage it to increase pressure on the Baltics in the coming years... The threat of war has become main policy tool for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” Marran said.

Marran said his agency was aware of 10 'battle groups' of Russian troops moving towards the Ukraine border where 100 such battle groups (about 170,000 troops) are already deployed.

Withdrawal claims ‘false’

A senior White House official termed as false Russia's claims on Tuesday that it was withdrawing forces from the Ukraine border. The unnamed official was quoted by the as saying “They received a lot of attention for that claim, both here and around the world. But we now know it was false.”

The official said at least 7,000 additional Russian troops had moved to Ukraine's border in recent days, with some arriving on Wednesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also told that his country had not seen "any troop withdrawal yet”.