“if Putin succeeds here, he’ll go after the Baltics or Poland next”
This is wild speculation of the most inflammatory kind.
Putin’s musings about Peter and Catherine suggest otherwise, plus it seems he clearly expected Germany to be forced to leave NATO in exchange for Russian gas and to demand that Poland and the former Warsaw Pact nations leave NATO to reestablish a Russian sphere of influence over Eastern Europe. The fact that he failed doesn’t diminish the intent.