A new Russian presidential decree suggests Moscow may be preparing for a confrontation with new NATO member Finland and the Baltic states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry prepared a presidential decree that will strip Russia’s Northern Fleet of its status as an “interdisciplinary strategic territorial unit.” It would transfer its four constituent regions (Komi Republic, Arkhangelsk and Murmansk Oblasts, and Nenets Autonomous Oblast) to the reformed Leningrad Military District.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The re-creation of the Leningrad Military District suggests that Russia is preparing for potential conflicts with the Baltic states and NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Leningrad Military District, which is stationed near new NATO member Finland and the Baltic states, is a key component of the Russian armed forces that oversees parts of the country’s defense strategy in Russia’s western region. Finland shares an 800-mile border with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finland joined the NATO military alliance this year in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – worked throughout the invasion to strengthen their defenses while also sending aid to Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Estonian counterintelligence said in a report this year that Russia considers the Baltic states to be the most vulnerable part of NATO. This would make them a hotbed of military pressure in the event of a conflict between the agency and Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Leningrad Military District was merged in 2010 with the Moscow Military District, the Northern Fleet and the Baltic Fleet to form the Western Military District. However, Moscow reversed course in August when Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the military districts were under active formation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The region is intended to wage war in a specific theater of operations. The Leningrad Military District has two theaters, the Baltic States and Finland. In order for the district to have enough connections, it must be saturated with troops. Accordingly, troops stationed in these areas are transferred to [region].<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the decision of the Russian Ministry of Defense to redeploy the Western Military District shows that Russia sees the need to restructure its forces facing NATO and possibly deploy them on the Finnish border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most likely this restructuring is planned for the post-war period in Ukraine. He added that when the conflict comes to an end, all participating nations will be faced with the question of preparing for a future war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new Russian presidential decree suggests Moscow may be preparing for a confrontation with new NATO member Finland and the Baltic states. On Sunday,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[825,3],"tags":[1276,25,3126,124,58,215,70],"class_list":["post-15736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-geopolitical","category-geopolitical","tag-baltic-countries","tag-eu","tag-finland","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15738,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15736\/revisions\/15738"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}