Satellite imagery analysis. What’s going on in Putin’s military bases behind the Estonian border and how big a threat they really pose us
(1)Russia has a number of military bases behind the borders of the Baltic states and Poland. The war in Ukraine has depleted these bases, but recent satellite images show rapid infrastructure development at several of them. The bases right next to the Baltic states and Finland are planned to be expanded several fold in ongoing military reforms.
This year, Russia spent seven times the Estonian state budget, or 115 billion euros, on war. In the near future, that amount is expected to increase even further. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin promises to expand the aggressor military’s ranks to one and a half million soldiers and create a new army near the Estonian border: at least on paper, many existing units will grow twice as powerful. At the same time war propagandists on Russian state television regularly attack Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, promising to restore Russian power here through bloodshed.
How much military capability does the aggressor state actually have behind Estonia’s borders? What would happen if Russia were to declare victory, freeing up troops from Ukraine?
Eesti Ekspress located all of Russia’s military bases — running southwards from the arctic city of Murmansk — along the borders of Estonia and Latvia to Kaliningrad.
We then added the military bases of Russia’s vassal state, Belarus, to the map. We selected 24 militarily significant locations and ordered recent satellite photos of them to compare with photos taken before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Satellite imagery analysis was done with assistance from the research foundation OSINT For Ukraine. We then asked current and former Estonian, Lithuanian, Polish, and NATO top military personnel to evaluate and comment on our findings.
The result is the most detailed publically available analysis on the current threat Russia’s military poses to Estonia and how we will respond to it if necessary.
I – Ukrainian Scars in the Face of the Russian Bear
Even when looking deep into Russia, up to 300 kilometers from the border (within the range of a single ATACMS missile), we can see that the western part of our eastern neighbor is as full of military objects as an autumn forest is full of mushrooms.
OSINT enthusiasts have mapped far more than a hundred objects there: from solitary radar stations that are in miserable state in wastelands to military towns, where Iskander ballistic missiles are kept in modern climate controlled hangars. This network is a legacy of the Cold War that Putin keeps alive.
Let’s start with the good news: Satellite photos reveal that many Russian military bases near Estonia have been half-emptied over the last few years.
By comparing satellite images of several bases over time, Ekspress was also able to identify that the vast majority of the equipment that was kept in the open air has disappeared.
Where hundreds of tanks, armored personnel carriers, command post vehicles, and Kamaz trucks once stood in dense rows, bare ground can now be seen. We cannot say with complete certainty that all of these have been taken to Ukraine. Some may be in garages, others with other military units. But it is also telling that there are often significantly fewer private cars of military personnel on the parking lots of the bases.
This is clearly visible, for example, at the Pskov military airfield, just 35 kilometers south-east from Estonia’s border with Russia. The 76th Airborne Division and the 2nd Spetsnaz, or Special Forces Brigade, are based there. Both are notorious rapid reaction units that the aggressor would use if it were necessary to capture critical locations, as was the case in the attempt to capture Kyiv, or to capture or kill state leaders or other important persons.
The head of the Estonian Defense Forces Military Intelligence Center, Colonel Ants Kiviselg, gives an example: if Putin attacked Estonia to pressure NATO, the task of the 76th and 2nd Spetsnaz would probably be to seize a key location or capture a military base to demonstrate superiority. „At the same time, they may also try to attack, seize, sabotage communication and data centers, or attack VIPs, similar to the kill lists in Ukraine,“ he adds.
In the event of a Russian attempt to occupy the whole of Estonian territory, these units would presumably be used to try to seize airfields or strategically important locations, so that Russian air defense could be deployed there.
When a Planet Labs satellite flew over the Pskov bases in June of this year, burn marks were still visible on the runway asphalt. These were etched there by Ukrainians who, on the night of August 29 last year, directed a drone swarm to the airfield from some 700 kilometers away. Two Il-76 transport planes were destroyed in the ensuing fire, and two more were damaged. The Russians had to take the remaining aircraft further east.
The drone attack also had a significant impact on the division’s training. Security at the bases was rather modest before the attack, but, presumably after realizing that the Russian troops in Pskov were also within the range of the Ukrainians, conscripts have since been ordered to patrol the base. However, this significantly reduces the amount of time available for substantive training.
The hit on Pskov was symbolic for the Ukrainians: It was from Pskov that 18 Il-76 planes took off on February 24, 2022, sending a thousand elite paratroopers to capture the Hostomel airfield near Kyiv. The attack was repulsed at the time with the help of both Ukrainian resistance and Estonian military intelligence. Units of the 76th Airborne Division were landed in Belarus. This was an important episode in keeping Kyiv from being captured.
In the following months, the unit was deployed in conventional combat missions and suffered heavy losses. According to Estonian military intelligence, only about 30 percent of the Pskov base’s combat capability remains today.
The decline in the quality of the division has also caught the attention of the international press. In April 2024, Forbes magazine asked how a division using 70-year-old tanks in battle could be considered elite. Ukrainian drones had filmed how the 76th Airborne Division went into battle not with the usual T-72 or modern T-90 tanks, but with T-55 tanks from the 1950s.
Much of the division’s capability seems to have literally gone underground. The burial ground established in 2012 at the Pskov military cemetery has expanded rapidly.
Ukrainian weapons have hit other bases near Estonia, too. These include the Ostrov airfield, located less than 80 kilometers from Southeast Estonia, and the runway of the Soltsy airbase 150 kilometers from the Estonian border, used as a forward posting to load weapons and fuel for bombers attacking Ukraine. Ukraine has also launched strikes on military bases located behind St. Petersburg.
Although Russia pumps trillions of rubles into its war machine every year, unlike Kaliningrad and Belarus, there has been no major development or construction activity at the bases behind the Estonian and Latvia borders with Russia. We will write more about what is happening in Kaliningrad below.
This is telling. Empty bases on NATO’s eastern border mean that Putin’s talk of the threat of a NATO attack as one of the reasons for the war in Ukraine is completely hollow. Even the Kremlin does not believe there is a forthcoming attack from the West that it needs to be prepared for.
II – Iskanders Aimed at Europe
However, the good news ends there. Using satellite images, Ekspress has identified several military bases behind the Baltic borders where there are signs of active use. These are places where military units are trained and put on trains, which, along with new or restored equipment, travel to the front in Ukraine. Or they are air bases used to refuel and arm fighter jets before they fly to Ukraine.
Satellite images show that some of the equipment is brand new. This calls into question the widespread belief that the Russian army has only Soviet-era stocks at its disposal.
We showed the pictures to former Commander of the Estonian Defense Forces Martin Herem. While the pictures clearly show that after February 2022, the bases’ motor pools were emptied, by the summer of 2024, Kamaz trucks, tanks, and armored cars are back in place.
„So they have a pretty good recovery ability. Eto sovsyem nye horosho (this is not good at all - Russian),“ Herem says, thinking aloud.
Just 120 kilometers from the Estonian border, halfway between St. Petersburg and Pskov, lies the town of Luga, which is one of the largest military centers for the Russian army behind our border and one of the most critical for Estonia. Among other things, the town houses a brigade that still has 12 Iskander missile systems at its disposal. With a range of 500 kilometers, these missiles, fired from Luga, can be used to reach even the Western most reaches of Estonia.
Luga has been heavily modernized since 2014. Iskander missiles and the vehicles used to transport and launch them are kept in modern climate-controlled bunkers. At the same time, there is also a decent air defense capability.
However, it is worth bearing in mind that even in Ukraine, the Russians do not use anti-aircraft or anti-ship missiles for their intended purpose, but fire them at civilian infrastructure on a daily basis. Although less accurate in such use cases, the missiles can still cause significant damage. There are many such „air defense“ points behind the Estonian border.
What is happening in Luga is not unknown to the Estonian Defense Forces. The military bases there are surrounded by huge training grounds. These are intended primarily for training with the Russians’ favorite type of weapon: heavy artillery.
As is the case with many Russian bases dealing with heavy equipment, Luga also has good rail connections. Just this May, the Estonian Defense Forces detected a battalion’s worth of 2S19 Msta-S and 2S1 self-propelled howitzers being loaded onto trains in Luga. The trains then moved on to Ukraine. After the vehicles were hit at the front or captured as spoils of war, the Ukrainians discovered that the howitzers had been manufactured just this year.
In conversations with the leadership of the Estonian Defense Forces, the Ukrainians have estimated that the aggressor has brought 640 brand new self-propelled howitzers to the front, mainly Msta-S or 2S43 „Malva“. It is believed in the West that very fast recovery capacity has become possible because, in 2022 and 2023, the Russians managed to import a large number of metalworking CNC lathes from Taiwan in spite of international sanctions. These industrial computer-controlled lathes or milling machines now work at full capacity for Putin’s war machine.
Active training and new vehicles are also noticeable in satellite images of the town of Kamenka located near the Finnish border, northwest of St. Petersburg and 100 kilometers from Narva as the crow flies. The base is home to the 138th Motorized Rifle Brigade.
While the base was empty in the 2022 image, a satellite image from June of this year showed that a tent city of nearly 120 tents for about 2,000 soldiers had been erected on a training ground near the base headquarters in recent months. At the same time, 30-40 trucks and light armored vehicles with new paintwork, i.e. battalion maneuver units, have appeared at the base. Like other bases, Kamenka is connected by a railway, which makes it easy to move trained units further east and south to fight in Ukraine.
At the end of 2022, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced a plan for military reform. Its main promise was to increase the army by 30 percent to 1.5 million soldiers by 2026. Since the plan followed immediately after Finland and Sweden’s decisions to join NATO, it specifically provides for an increase in military forces right near us.
In 2022, Russia declared that it had nearly 120,000 troops and 1,000 tanks in the Western Military District.
Directly facing Estonia is the 6th Combined Arms Army. It consists of a number of units, the crown jewels of which are the aforementioned 138th Motorized Infantry Brigade in Kamenka (approximately 4,000 soldiers) and the 25th Motorized Infantry Brigade in Luga (over 3,000 soldiers), along with missile units also located in Luga.
In addition, 76th Airborne Division, subordinate to the Airborne Forces Command, and the 2nd Spetsnaz Brigade, directly subordinate to Russian military intelligence the GRU, are located behind the Estonian border in Pskov, as are a number of smaller air and rear support units in other locations.
The military reform will double the number of soldiers, currently at a total of 19,000, behind our borders. It is likely that the 138th and 25th brigades will be upgraded to divisions. The 44th Army Corps is expected to be headquartered in Petrozavodsk to face off against Finland. The direction south of us is the responsibility of the 1st Tank Army, which would be expected to operate together with Belarusian units, for example in cutting off the Suwałki corridor.
„The Russian leadership sees a need to return to the concept of a mass army in order to continue the war against Ukraine and prepare for a possible conflict with NATO,“ the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service assessed in February of this year.
Thus, the Russians have ground forces with armored vehicles along with paratroopers and special forces, who can be quickly flown to any point by helicopter, right next to the Estonian border. Next to us are missile bases equipped with Iskanders. Any attack scenario would also involve the air force.
In addition to the Pskov airfield and the Ostrov helicopter base that supports it, there is also the Soltsy air base, the Pushkin base with various attack helicopters near St. Petersburg, and the Siversky bomber base, also located near St. Petersburg, all of them only a few hundred kilometers from Estonia.
One of the most significant airfieldsis the one at Besovets by Lake Onega near Petrozavodsk. In the event of a wider conflict involving all of NATO, the planes taking off from Besovets would be sowing confusion all over the Baltic Sea.
In the event of a more limited ground operation that would only involve the Baltic states — considered the more likely scenario — the air force center would probably be at the Khotilovo airfield, located between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
The significance of the Khotilovo air base is also suggested by the large ammunition depots located right next to it. Our analysis of satellite images showed that a modern new warehouse was built there just this year.
III – Russia’s War Budget Grows Fast
„I don’t think Russia will attack Estonia tomorrow,“ retired General Ben Hodges tells Ekspress, adding, „in the traditional sense.“ Hodges previously commanded the US Army in Europe, so the nuances of Russia’s military capabilities are his bread and butter. However, he does not consider the Russian military threat to Estonia and other Baltic states to be hypothetical, but very real.
„The Russians are already clearly at war with us, even if we don’t acknowledge it ourselves,“ he says, citing the destruction of undersea cables, acts of sabotage across Europe, airspace violations, cyber attacks, and hacking. With these operations, Russia is testing the West to see how we will react. And if there is no reaction, it makes Russia bolder.
„Every time a [Russian] cruise missile or drone flies through the airspace of Poland or Romania and we don’t react to it, it’s a signal to the Russians,“ says Hodges.
Above all Estonia must be ready for war if Ukraine loses or — in Hodges’ words, if the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom allow Ukraine to lose against Russia. In this case, Russia would force tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers to fight for Russia, gain possession of Ukrainian military equipment, and restore its army’s reserves in a few years.
Putin has staked all his hopes on the outcome that he will be able to exhaust the West’s willpower.
One indicator of Putin’s long term plan is Russia’s state budget. This year, our Eastern neighbor planned to spend 10.4 trillion rubles (98 billion euros) on the war machine, but after half a year, they created a supplementary budget, which increased the military expenditures to an estimated 12.2 trillion rubles (115 billion euros), or almost seven Estonian state budgets.
A month ago, the Kremlin published a new budgetary plan, according to which the military spending is to be increased by 25 percent in 2025 compared to what was originally planned for this year, which is to say, to 13.5 trillion rubles (129 billion euros). However the public will not know what this will be spent on, because 85 percent of military spending is classified. The content of the budget is more hidden than ever before.
Putin’s wish is that the growth of the military should continue at about the same pace in the coming years: in 2026, 12.8 trillion rubles (121 billion euros) are to be shoveled there, and in 2027, 13.1 trillion rubles (124 billion euros).
Therefore, the aggressor state does not plan to return to the pre-2022 level of spending, which was a mere 34 to 52 billion euros.
„The dramatic increase in Russia’s defense spending suggests that Russia expects a war that will last beyond next year,“ Colonel Ants Kiviselg, head of Estonian military intelligence, tells Ekspress. „Whether it takes place in Ukraine or in another region is another question, but the Russian Federation is definitely preparing for it.“
IV – How the War Would Take Place
Generals Martin Herem, Veiko-Vello Palm, and Jüri Saska, who until recently held the highest positions in the Estonian Defense Forces, all say that the complete annexation of the Baltic states is not the number one threat scenario.
There are several facts to support this reasoning: while the Russian leadership may have wrongly assumed that, after the February 2022 invasion, part of the population of Ukraine would side with Russia, no such thing could reasonably be expected in the Baltic states. The aggressor forces would face millions of resistance fighters, wherever they would arrive.
The second reason is military-technical. Russian air defense systems wouldn’t be able to cover their forces as they advanced into the Baltic states. Without air defense, these would be easy targets for NATO’s fifth-generation fighter jets, which can arrive very quickly.
To create a convincing air defense bubble, Putin’s army would have to transport air defense units to a location from which it would be possible to cover the airspace of the Baltic Sea, such as to the islands of Gotland or Hiiumaa, and keep it there for an extended time. Such an operation would be extremely complex and its chances for success questionable: NATO countries surround almost the entire Baltic Sea and are technologically superior to Russia. The Russians would take too big a bite and risk very heavy losses.
With its very limited technology, Ukraine has been able to put several Russian air force bases under attack from far away. One such base is Soltsy, where Russian bombers now only stop for a short time, but where satellite images show what are likely Kh-22 and possibly Kh-32 missiles.
Therefore, the most plausible scenario is thought to be an attempt to seize a smaller area of land, with the aim of making demands on the West like a hostage-taker. This would sow fear in societies and split NATO allies into several camps around the question of what military response should be considered proportional.
Ben Hodges expresses the same idea. „I don’t think Russia has territorial ambitions beyond the Baltic countries and maybe parts of Poland. Their real goal would be to break up NATO: to show that the alliance and its members are not really ready to come to the aid of every country. You could imagine a hypothetical scenario where Russian troops go to Lithuania, Latvia, or Estonia, occupy part of it, and then stop and ask, ’Do you really want to start a nuclear war over this?’ And if the answer was negative from anyone, that would be the end of NATO’s Article 5,“ Hodges argues.
„I do think that a Russian attack would be limited,“ says former Commander of the Defense Forces, Martin Herem. „They’d come in, run havoc, create some very grotesque scenes, and while we would not be occupied, we’d become so terribly afraid of Russia that we’d accept its conditions. This can be achieved with a military operation.“
Herem is concerned that the military’s early warning for such an operation wouldn’t give Estonia much time. It is known that in previous conflicts, Russia has stockpiled ammunition at certain training grounds in the course of exercises years before the conflict started. All of this could be retrieved from the depots during a future exercise and used to make war. Ukraine’s experience shows that it took 18 days to deploy 200,000 men. This means that, in order to foresee a limited attack, one must be able to read an entire combination of signs, the most telling of which may be political.
Estonian defense personnel know Russia’s signature move: suffocation with human mass and firepower, wave after wave, until the other side breaks.
„Their math is: ’You are one, we put three, plus fire support. And we should be able to overcome you. If we can’t, then we’ll add more fire support. And if we run out of supplies, then the second echelon will come in and we will still come through you, because by that time you will definitely be weak,’“ describes Herem.
V – How to Fight a Goliath?
Former division commander General Veiko-Vello Palm has been thinking for many years about how such an aggressor behaves — and how to stop it with much smaller forces.
Palm says that Estonia’s position is somewhat better compared to Ukraine. „The entire infrastructure behind our borders, up to St. Petersburg, is very unfavorable for the Russians. They don’t have enough roads, the throughput isn’t good enough. The same applies to railways,“ Palm lists.
The invasion of Ukraine has clearly shown how much a mass army depends on roads. When the 76th Airborne Division was moved from Pskov to the Ukrainian border at the end of 2021, they were first taken to St. Petersburg, and only from there, in a detour around Moscow, to Ukraine. It was faster than the more direct route and interfered less with civilian traffic.
The terrain and forests are also on our side. Palm says, generalizing, that the Russians essentially only have a few places on the coast of the Gulf of Finland where they can set up radar to monitor the sea between Tallinn and St. Petersburg. There’s no reason to think that the Estonian Defense Forces wouldn’t have identified those places.
The Russian military infrastructure on our borders is dense, and it makes no sense to spend ammunition on everything. When talking about the very first moment of a real attack, the most dangerous things for Estonia are the Russians’ operational-depth weapons — like the Iskanders in Luga. „They could basically start firing at Estonia right from their garages. They wouldn’t even have to drive out anywhere and the warning time is very short,“ says Palm.
Therefore, long-range fire has risen to the top of the list of priorities for Estonian defense planners. For Estonia, valuable targets include all locations that the Russian army must use throughout the conflict: airfields, other stationary positions, and rear support areas where ammunition and supplies are concentrated.
„If the operation remains at the level of the Leningrad Military District or the 6th Army, then we would probably see very limited goals and seizures of areas of tens of kilometers,“ predicts Palm. „To do something bigger, they would have to bring in a separate General Staff command post to coordinate the cooperation between the different branches of the armed forces. However, this is a relatively difficult operation for them.“
Based on such assumptions, according to Palm, two political mistakes should definitely be avoided.
The first mistake would be Western politicians only allowing Estonia to hit back at the precise locations from which Russia is striking, not at Russia more generally. The second mistake would be that the West, fearing escalation, would limit how deep into Russia it would be allowed to attack back.
General Ben Hodges put another fly in the ointment. If the conflict were to start with hybrid operations or a so-called cold start, there could be decision-makers in the West whose first natural reaction would be to not bring additional forces here quickly for fear of provoking Russia.
Infrastructure can also become an obstacle: for example, the different rail gauges, which to this day require military vehicles to be reloaded from one train to another in Lithuania.
„In the worst case, you could wait two or three weeks for allies to come from elsewhere,“ says Hodges. „This means that for resistance, you will have what you have, including the British and French forces that are already there. NATO airpower would probably appear immediately. So — you’re not alone, but you won’t see a long column of Abrams tanks in the first two weeks.“
Putting together all this knowledge and experience from Ukraine leaves only one option: „All the enemy’s military force must be wiped out in the first few days,“ says General Martin Herem.
The Estonian Defense Forces’ and the Ministry of Defense’s calculation that the defense forces need an additional 1.6 billion euros is also based on this deterrent effect and the analysis of enemy bases. This includes the purchase of ATACMS missiles with a range of 300 kilometers.
VI – The Kaliningrad Problem
The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is about three times smaller than Estonia area-wise, however, it is essentially one large military base with a city of half a million inhabitants in the middle.
The Russians have crammed together airfields for bombers, ports for naval vessels, and special-purpose facilities and units in the Kaliningrad enclave, such as long-range radars, nuclear weapons’ bunkers, and electronic warfare equipment. There are ten missile and weapons arsenals within a 25-kilometer radius alone. Some of them have been significantly renovated and expanded over the past decade.
Kaliningrad is arguably most notorious as the main base of the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet. While maintenance, repair, and the construction of new surface and subsurface vessels are mainly located in Kronstadt near St. Petersburg, it is Baltiysk that houses most of the weapons and combat units. Until recently, there were 52 warships there. While Russia has taken 60-70 percent of its equipment from Kaliningrad to fight in Ukraine, this has had little impact on its navy and missile forces.
Former Navy Commander Commodore Jüri Saska says that the Baltic Fleet would probably have three main uses for the Russian army in the event of war: to make a landing somewhere to seize land; to establish a no-fly zone for NATO in some part of the Baltic Sea with ships capable of air defense; or to support Russian ground operations with ships carrying Kalibr missiles.
In the case of a landing, the focus of the unit would be an expensive landing ship full of people and equipment. It would need cover from several other ships and the support of one or two submarines. When creating an air defense bubble however, the most important thing would be a missile cruiser, like the Moskva the Ukrainians sank in the Black Sea. The Russians still have at least two vessels with such capabilities in Kaliningrad.
Saska says that the war in Ukraine has nevertheless weakened the Russian navy. For example, the Baltic Fleet’s landing capability has practically disappeared. The biggest problem it poses may be submarines with Kalibr missiles. Due to temperature differences and the mixing of salty and fresh water, the Baltic Sea is „blind,“ and submarines are especially difficult to detect in summer. „A submarine would probably be the weapon that the Russians would use in the Baltic Sea and that would also cause headaches for our allies,“ says Saska.
The Polish Ministry of Defense told our partner VSquare.org that Russia has been increasing its armed forces in Kaliningrad since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. The main focus has been on ships, aircraft, and missile systems capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Nine new Buyan-M and Karakurt-class missile ships have been put into service in the Baltic Fleet for this purpose. Two more will be added this year. All of them are equipped with Kalibr-NK missiles, which are also capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Russia also plans to equip the Baltic Fleet with new Lada-M type submarines, which will have the same missiles on board.
Thus, the development of Russia’s nuclear capability in Kaliningrad has become the West’s biggest concern. Russia modernized storage conditions for tactical nuclear warheads in Kaliningrad in 2015-2017. According to Poland, it is possible to store up to 100 tactical nuclear warheads there — and their range includes both Warsaw and Berlin. In addition, Russia has recently begun rewriting its nuclear doctrine, overhauling operating instructions that had remained unchanged throughout the Cold War. Therefore, the Polish Ministry of Defense believes that NATO must also make its nuclear deterrence more credible.
According to Jüri Saska, the allied units are numerically and qualitatively superior to the Russians in Kaliningrad. There is no doubt that, in the event of war, the threat emanating from Kaliningrad would be among the first to be eliminated. However, hybrid operations that do not yet require the application of Article 5 are a much grayer area.
Ekspress’s satellite analysis identified several locations in Kaliningrad where Russia has been eagerly developing intelligence, sabotage and attack infrastructure in recent years, all of it clearly aimed towards Europe.
The village of Parusnoye in Kaliningrad is located just 15 kilometres from the Baltic Fleet’s main base at Baltiysk. The 561st Special Purpose Naval Intelligence Point located there is also part of the Baltic Fleet.
Satellite images show that a new training building has been built and a helicopter landing pad renovated at the Parusnoye base in recent years. There is also a body of water which is illuminated at night that is used for underwater training.
Despite the fact that, according to the latest data, only a maximum of 120 military personnel work at this base, Polish and Lithuanian experts consider it to be one of the most dangerous units the Russians have in Kaliningrad. Their core has been trained for anti-NATO missions on the Baltic Sea coast and specifically against strategic targets in Lithuania and Poland.
„When we talk about and prepare for a ’day X’, when Russia decides to attack NATO, then this sabotage group will already have done its job by that day,“ says one of our Lithuanian partner LRT’s sources.
One of the targets of the 561st Naval Intelligence sabotage unit is the port of Klaipėda and its infrastructure, as it is an important point for Lithuanian and NATO operations. The strategic location of the port makes it irreplaceable for NATO supply chains and regional defence in the Baltic Sea region.
We were consulted by sources who had read a training plan of the Russian saboteurs drawn up in 2015. One section of the plan included orders to the 561st Naval Intelligence Unit to cross the Lithuanian border unnoticed within 10-12 days and then focus on a specific location on the Baltic Sea coast. A monitoring post was to be established and radio intelligence carried out. Their tasks also included the mining of port infrastructure, such as loading cranes, piers or docks. This would cripple NATO’s ability to supply or deploy forces for operations in the region.
In the central part of the Kaliningrad exclave, 25 kilometers from the Polish border, lies the town of Chernyakhovsk. The 152nd Missile Brigade is stationed there, operating Iskander-M missiles and S-400 air defense systems.
Satellite images show how Russia started building an OTH (over-the-horizon) radar „Container“ there last year . The giant radar system with a diameter of 1200 meters features 150 antenna masts and could detect Western aircraft and missiles from a distance of 3000 kilometers. Thus, Kaliningrad and the construction of a giant radar system there allow the Russians to keep an eye on the whole of Europe.
The border between Lithuania and Poland is only 65 kilometers long as the crow flies. This is the so-called Suwałki corridor. This thin strip of land is bordered to the west by the Kaliningrad Oblast. To the east lies Belarus, whose army Putin is increasingly integrating to work in lockstep with the Russian army. Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko is almost entirely dependent on Putin’s mercy.
Kaliningrad is both a military base for Russia in a possible attack on NATO and a burden on its back. On the one hand, in the event of war, Russia would probably try to cut through the Suwałki corridor quickly. This would mean that, firstly, NATO military aid, supplies, and units would no longer be able to enter the Baltic states. Secondly, it would secure a land corridor for Russia to supply Kaliningrad. But without such a corridor, Kaliningrad is difficult for Putin to defend, although there are more military bases there than Circle K gas stations in Estonia.
„If Russia really attacked [the Baltic states], you can be sure that Kaliningrad would be hit very, very hard. All their command and control, their long-range weapons systems would be hit immediately,“ Hodges tells us.
But as always, there is a big „but“ hidden here. Hodges talks about the fact that NATO is militarily prepared for this. However, when it comes to attacking the sovereign territory of Russia, even to defend a NATO member state, would require a consensual political decision.
Against the Aggressor
Konrad Muzyka is a Polish defense analyst specializing in the armed forces of Russia and Belarus. He senses that, wherever you look on Russia’s western border, their ground forces and equipment have dwindled. They have been kept busy by Ukraine’s stubborn resistance. Every new piece of iron coming out of the factory is moved to the front as a matter of necessity. Only a handful of active personnel are kept on site, and they are, at best, trying to provide necessary training to conscripts. This is also the reality even if concrete has recently been poured or fancy equipment has been set up at some base.
However, behind the apparent silence, Muzyka sees several major developing problems. Firstly, Russia has tremendous production capacity for cruise missiles and Iskanders. In contrast, there is little air defence in Poland or the Baltic states to fend them off.
Second, NATO’s defence doctrine assumes that the Allies will have air superiority in the event of a conflict. „We destroy Russian air defences and we don’t need a million artillery shells, because our planes are so accurate that they destroy the enemy’s ground forces,“ explains Muzyka. But, he asks, what happens to the defence doctrine when the US Air Force is engaged elsewhere, such as in a Sino-Taiwanese armed conflict?
Retired General Hodges also reflects on air danger. According to him, the first priority for this region should not only be NASAMS and Patriot systems, but also aircraft, ships with anti-aircraft capabilities and equipment that can neutralize the aggressor’s fire even within range of Russian electronic jammers.
However, all the defence analysts and generals we spoke to also had a positive message: the West actually knows what to do to repel the aggressor. If we don’t fall asleep the moment they assemble the units for the attack, that is. If the political leaders of the countries and NATO do not give up. Unless China attacks Taiwan. Unless Ukraine is destroyed, splitting NATO’s political leadership in the process. And when societies have a consensus that defence must be invested into.
There are a lot of „ifs“ here, but Hodges says that in the best case scenario, we will have all the necessary reinforcements from the US, Germany, etc. before the Russian aggression begins. Herem confirms that, were such a moment to arise, our forces would already be firing all their weapons at the border.
In fact, we have enough time to prepare so that the Kremlin will understand: they should not come to our yard to fight.
