RIGA, Latvia As top Kremlin officials have sounded ominous new warnings that they will defend ethnic Russians wherever they live, Latvia, the NATO nation with the highest proportion of Russians, is feeling in the crosshairs.

Six months into a bloody conflict in Ukraine, where pro-Russian insurgents have seized key stretches of territory, other nations that were ruled by the Kremlin until the breakup of the Soviet Union are worried they could be the next target of Russian intrigue. President Obama this month vowed that the United States would defend its eastern European NATO allies, but several episodes in recent weeks have tested that resolve.

A top Russian diplomat touched down in Latvias capital to warn of unfortunate consequences stemming from alleged discrimination against the ethnic Russian minority there. The capital citys mayor paid an unusually timed visit to Moscow. And a Russian-speakers political party passed out fliers comparing a heavily Russian region of Latvia to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in March in the name of protecting its compatriots.

The incidents have troubled Latvia, a nation of 2 million people along the Baltic Sea where many retired Soviet officers remained along with their families after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Because Latvia is a member of the NATO defense alliance, threats against it have importance out of proportion to its size. NATO troops, including a 600-strong contingent of Americans, are currently rotating through Baltic territories, and NATO leaders this month approved new forces that would be able to quickly deploy to Eastern Europe should they be needed.

Russia and Putin still have a geopolitical interest in the post-Soviet territories, said Latvian Defense Minister Raimonds Vejonis. Russia is trying to use the Russian-speaking minority as a tool to aggressively promote its objectives.

The breakup of the Soviet Union left behind substantial Russian minorities in all three of the Baltic states, and many of their complaints are similar to those of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. In Ukraine, Russian speakers in the east have said they feared attacks on the right to speak their language. In Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, ethnic Russians have complained of laws that require knowledge of the national language to obtain citizenship and of other rules that downplay Russian language and history in classrooms.

The societal divisions have taken special urgency in Latvia, where national leaders have long clashed with the Kremlin. About one-third of the population uses Russian as its primary language, and 13 percent of the population holds non-citizen status and cannot vote. Latvias government temporarily banned some Russian state-run television channels earlier this year, saying that the stations coverage of events in Ukraine and in Latvia was detrimental to national security.

We can see attempts by Russia to affect many countries policies. Soft power, soft influence, said Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics. Security, foreign policy, is back on the agenda almost as it was in the 1990s.

Leaders worry that Latvia will be specially targeted ahead of its six-month term holding the rotating E.U. presidency, which begins in January, and they say they are bolstering their defenses against cyberattacks.

The strains between groups have received ongoing Kremlin scrutiny.

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In Latvia, fresh fears of aggression as Kremlin warns about Russian minorities