The aim of the article is to study the military security trends on the ‘northern flank’ of the confrontation between Russia and the collective West. The relevance of this work is due to the further expansion of NATO to the East, expressed in the accession of Finland and Sweden to the alliance and, accordingly, the creation of new threats. In the conditions of continuing high-intensity armed conflict in the middle of Europe, NATO’s actions can be seen as part of the measures to impose costs on the Russian Federation and stretch the perimeter of its deterrence capabilities. The article also considers the problem of materialisation of perceived threats in the form of practical steps in the field of military development leading to an ‘escalation vortex’, and suggests directions of possible negative consequences minimisation for national and international security because of NATO actions. For response measures, it is proposed to take into account the limited (primarily mobilisation and military-technical) resources (currently more crucial to fulfill the tasks of the Special Military Operation), as well as to limit escalation threats under the situation of intensive security dilemma implementation.