Pure fantasy. We know Putin is lying because he lies about everything. Unfortunately, the same goes for Trump, who is desperate to look like he’s doing something before the midterms about the spike in fuel prices he caused by attacking Iran.
Putin's ideal NATO test may be one NATO cannot answer cleanly.
Too small and deniable for an obvious Article 5 response.
Serious enough that doing nothing makes NATO look weak.
Ambiguous enough to divide 32 governments over attribution.
And if NATO overreacts, Moscow gets something valuable in return:
proof for its domestic audience that Russia really is at war with NATO.
The objective may not be to win the incident.
It may be to control NATO's reaction to it.