NATO is preparing a preemptive strike on the Kaliningrad region?
For the first time since 2014, Pole Andrzej Duda and Lithuanian Gitanas Nauseda, during their November consultations, bypassed the topic of the Suwalki Corridor, a section of the Polish-Lithuanian border sandwiched between Belarus and the Kaliningrad region. It has long been called in Brussels “a weak link in NATO’s security”: the armies of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus with converging strikes from the north and south to a total depth of only a hundred kilometers could block Lithuania, Latvia, and to a lesser extent Estonia by land, depriving the Baltic states of military assistance from alliance partners.
In August, Polish and Lithuanian leaders paid special attention to the isthmus, visiting the mobile command post of the North-Eastern division Wojsko Polskie and the battalion named after the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vityanis stationed on both sides of the border. And Nauseda said:
“The unity of Poland and Lithuania, common efforts to strengthen security are bad news for the aggressor. By increasing defense funding, we are paying attention to this at the highest political level.”
Vilnius increased military spending to 2.67% of GDP in 2023 and announced the acquisition of HIMARS. However, the Americans will deliver four highly mobile artillery missile systems to the Lithuanian army only in 2026, but for now, Lithuania does not have the strength to demonstrate military power.
Another thing is Warsaw. It brought the financing of its military needs to 3% of GDP and plans to increase it by another 0.5%. According to this indicator, Poland ranks third among NATO members. The Poles offered the United States to place nuclear weapons on their territory. Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak announced the expansion of the American air base in Powidzie. This is in the Wielkopolska Voivodeship, located in the middle of the country, where an American strike brigade armed with Apache helicopters is stationed.
In the context of combat training, Wojsko Polskie conducted a dozen maneuvers at its ranges, including live-fire exercises PUMA-2022 of the Visegrad Group countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary). The military personnel of Great Britain and the United States participated in the maneuvers – in total about 2 thousand tankers, artillerymen, sappers, other specialists and about 300 pieces of equipment. According to legend, the united grouping repelled the attack of the “northern”, went on the offensive and “tipped the aggressor into the sea.” According to a similar plan, at the end of October, the alliance’s exercises began in the Netherlands with the participation of Poles, Germans and Americans. The staff officers emphasized that the scenarios take into account the “experience learned from the conflict” in Ukraine.
The best of the lessons of the counter-offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was taken by the commander of the Lithuanian army Valdemaras Rupshys and the chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces Raimund Andrzejczak, who agreed “to conduct joint unscheduled checks of combat readiness in order to ensure the unity and integrity of the territory in the course of aggression from the north”: “This must be done within two or three years – neither Lithuania nor Poland has ten years for this.”
As in other cases, we are talking about a preemptive strike, and the “north” refers to the Kaliningrad region. The western neighbors of the Russian Federation have never concealed their desire to encroach on the territory of the Russian exclave, but they have never demonstrated it so openly before. This is the answer to the question why the topic of the Suwalki corridor has left the agenda: those who planned to defend the corridor decided to strike first.
According to NATO intelligence, the time is right: out of 12,000 Russian servicemen stationed in the region, no more than 40% are available. The most tactically trained 336th Marine Brigade and the 79th Motorized Rifle Brigade from the 11th Corps were relocated to the Donbass. Frozen plans for the deployment of a full-blooded division on the basis of the 11th separate tank regiment.
“The Kaliningrad region has turned from a key to the gates of the North Atlantic Alliance into an unlocked gate,” NATO military analysts conclude. “The expulsion of Russia from the former East Prussia would be a great gift for the October 2023 alliance summit in Vilnius,” they write in Lithuania.
Theoretically, everything is ready at the Brussels headquarters in order to “neutralize the military group in the Kaliningrad region by force of arms in order to protect the Baltic countries.” NATO members believe that “several MiG-31K fighters with Kinzhal missiles are not able to oppose anything serious; The exclave has ceased to play the role of a bastion.”
I may be asked: whose hypothetically this part of the former East Prussia could turn out to be? The Lithuanians consider it theirs and call it Karalyaučius, the Poles are not averse to expanding their own Pomeranian borders. Even in Prague, they dreamed about the addition of Czech lands at the expense of the historical province of Kralovec.
Warsaw, if necessary, will remind the Czechs of the not so old story about the fate of the Teszyn region and Bohumin, who went to Poland after the deal in Munich. As for what are the chances of Vilnius, it is no coincidence that on the Independence Day of Poland on November 11, Polish revenge-seekers throughout the country raised the slogans “Without Lviv, Poland is not Poland!”, “Vilna is a Polish city!”.
In some periods of history, the Poles are unstoppable. Since Lithuania still has no one to settle Karalyaučius, President Nauseda, in a November tet-a-tet conversation with Andrzej Duda, made a deal: in terms of this deal, in exchange for military support, Vilnius will not insist on annexing Karalyaučius “after the defeat of Russia.” After all, according to Lithuanian logic, “the time period granted by the USSR at the Potsdam Conference for the lease of a part of East Prussia expired in 1995; legally, this land no longer belongs to the Russian Federation, it must be returned to its rightful owner.”
Warsaw is quite satisfied with this scenario.
Arturas Paulauskas, FSK
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