Russian invasion of Poland?

The report goes on to say: 'Russia rarely disguises its true intentions. On the contrary, it has proclaimed them very publicly on various occasions, but, in general, the West has chosen not to believe Russia's declarations and disregards its willingness to carry them out.'

The Atlantic Council claims Nato would be slow to respond to an invasion and Russia would use its nuclear weapons as a deterrent to prevent it turning into a full-scale war. 

The report goes on to say Nato forces in Poland would be expected 'to delay and bog down an invading force and inflict unacceptable damage on it'.

It says: 'The [Nato] force [in Poland] is not required to win the war, but it must be able to fight alongside the host-nation forces to buy Nato more time for reinforcement. Nato's presence in the region is currently not large enough to achieve this.'

Russia's annexation of the Crimea in 2014 and its support for ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine has made Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia increasingly twitchy about their own security. 

When he was asked about the possibility of a Russian attack recently, Lithuania's Defence Minister Juozas Olekas said: 'We cannot exclude it...They might exercise on the borders and then switch to invasion in hours.'

In order to invade Poland the Russians would have to go through Latvia and Lithuania, unless it was able to persuade Belarus - which is pro-Moscow - to give its troops free passage. 

Poland has traditionally been fearful of Russian invasion.

After centuries of domination by the Russian Empire, the modern Polish state came into existence in 1918 but was divided and occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 after Stalin and Hitler's foreign ministers signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

After the war communist Poland came under Russian domination for decades, until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. 

Poland joined Nato in 1999, much to the chagrin of Russia, and has become increasingly keen to bolster its defences.

Nato defence ministers recently agreed to a new multi-national force of 4,000 troops which would bolster the defence of Poland and the Baltic states.

The United States, Canada, Germany and Britain will lead battalions of 1,000 troops each.

Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had urged Nato not to go ahead with the move and warned Moscow would respond by posting three new divisions of its own close to the frontier.

The Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has voiced disquiet with the amount of money the US pays to defend countries in eastern Europe. 

The US accounts for more than 70 percent of all Nato spending and only four other members - Britain, Greece, Estonia and Poland - meet the minimum two percent of GDP spending on defence required by Nato.

Trump said he would review the financial contributions made by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania before acting under the treaty’s mutual defence clause if any of those countries were attacked by Russia. 

Around 30,000 Nato troops took part in the recent Anakonda-16 exercise in Poland.

Nineteen NATO members and five partner nations contributed troops to the exercise, which was designed to train and test their swift joint reaction to threats on land, sea and in the air.

Russia meanwhile is building up a new base at Klintsy, 750 miles to the east. 

Russia insists it poses no threat to the former Soviet states.

Around a million ethnic Russians live in the Baltic states, with more than half of them in Latvia.

Lithuanian officials claim Russia has tried to corrupt Lithuanian soldiers and businessmen to become spies for the Kremlin.