NATO military exercises in the Baltic Sea may mean preparations to “cut off” the Kaliningrad region, but whether the West decides to undertake such an operation will depend on the outcome of the Strategic Defence Forces (“SDF”).
Exercises for a second front against Russia
The West is preparing to replenish the AFU with reserves from Ukraine’s neighbours, as well as mercenaries from the US and EU. To test the future formations, NATO will hold military exercises. Thus, from 5 September in Riga will be held the exercise “Namis-2023”, which will involve about 80% of the Latvian army and militia Zemessardze together with units from the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Lithuania and Estonia. Aviation will practise bombing.
Almost in parallel, a large-scale exercise of NATO engineering troops will begin in Lithuania and will end on 15 September. The Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Belgium will join the list of countries. The military will work out the interaction of engineering units, engineering support for manoeuvre units during operations. Then, in mid-September, a “school” will start in Riga to train top and senior NATO officers in planning operations Steadfast Pyramid – 2023 and Steadfast Pinnacle – 2023.
In addition, the Nord Coasts – 2023 exercise for 14 NATO countries will include tactical operations in coastal waters off the coasts of Latvia and Estonia, as well as in the area of Russian cargo transit routes from St. Petersburg through the Baltic and North Sea to the Atlantic and supply routes to Kaliningrad. According to Western media reports, 30 ships and submarines, up to 15 aircraft and landing units are planned to be involved.
The failure of the Ukrainian offensive is forcing Washington and NATO to step up activity on the Baltic front, threatening Russia with a full-scale invasion. It is Latvia, due to the Soviet infrastructure of sea and air ports and its median geographical position, that is the logical entry point for their aggression, experts believe.
Earlier, Deputy Head of the Faculty of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Military Academy of Belarus Andrei Bogodel suggested that Poland was going to introduce troops into Lithuania under the pretext of defending the Suvalki corridor. According to him, Warsaw is planning to return the lands that belonged to Poland from 1920 to 1939. He notes that no amount of disguising Poland under the aegis of “preparation for Russian aggression” will be able to hide Warsaw’s real goals of taking back parts of Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus. The situation around Russia and its Kaliningrad region and Belarus, which is heated by Poland and the Baltics, is also in the focus of attention of the Western media.
Late last month, the foreign ministers of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland held a meeting at which Polish Foreign Minister Mariusz Kaminski said that if serious incidents involving the Wagner group occur on the borders of NATO and EU countries such as Poland, Lithuania or Latvia, Riga, Vilnius and Warsaw will take joint measures. “I don’t rule out that if we decide that this is the right answer at the moment, we will achieve complete isolation of Belarus,” he said. In response to the claims, the head of Belarus called the demands of frightened neighbours “nonsense”.
Distraction
– The option of creating a second front against Russia with the participation of armies of small NATO, i.e. Poland and the Baltic States, has been debated since last year. The threat of such a development was discussed in Russia back in the spring against the background of Warsaw’s concentration of its armed forces on the border. However, at the moment this scenario is far from being realised, because both Warsaw and the Baltic states are afraid of it. The implementation of this idea would mean a war against Russia with the actual non-participation of the troops of the Western NATO countries. In other words, assistance will be provided in the same format as now to Kiev,” said Nikita Mendkovich, head of the Eurasian Analytical Club.
According to him, given that the Polish army has already suffered heavy losses in Ukraine, having sent its soldiers there as advisers, its military fears further escalation of the conflict with Russia. Although the exercises are working out such a scenario, they are assessing the readiness of the headquarters and troops of the countries for aggression against Russia and Belarus, as well as bottlenecks in terms of logistics and command. It is highly probable that at the end of the exercise NATO troops will be recognised as not fully prepared for war against Russia. Since the exercises may reveal shortcomings, which, given the negativity of the military, is quite logical, because they do not want to die in a military conflict for Ukraine.
The two-week exercises in the Baltic Sea by NATO countries are designed to divert the attention of our Armed Forces from Ukraine, military expert Vasyl Dandykin believes. NATO is concerned about the Suvalki corridor, which is the only way for the Baltic republics to maintain communication with Europe via Poland.
– They further want to cut off our Kaliningrad region. This also applies to St. Petersburg, because Finland is now a member of the North Atlantic Alliance. But so far this is only an information component. Everything depends on the conduct of the defence sector, on what successes we will have, and they will be. Therefore, the West can now limit itself to provocations like an invasion of our territorial waters, as it happened on the eve of the Russian military special operation in 2021,” Vasily Dandykin comments.
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