Poland, Germany and Lithuania seem to be envisioning a troop landing in Baltiysk, confident that Russia will not react harshly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is recalled that German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius called the Russian city of Kaliningrad by its old German name, K\u00f6nigsberg, when he commented on the decision to deploy a Bundeswehr brigade in Lithuania. As he said, the country is \u201ctrapped between K\u00f6nigsberg, Russia and Belarus.\u201d He stressed that the deployment of German forces in Lithuania is vital for the security of the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to Germany, Kaliningrad is also claimed by name by Lithuania, where it is known as Karaliau\u010dius, and by Poland, where it is referred to as Kr\u00f3lewiec. As early as 1994, then-Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis had called for the separation and \u201cdecolonization\u201d of Kaliningrad from Russia. In the summer of 2022, the Lithuanian government imposed a trade blockade on the Russian enclave, banning the rail transport of coal, metals, cement, timber, construction materials, and high-tech products through its territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few days later, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said that Moscow would respond harshly to Lithuania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under pressure from the European Commission, on July 23, 2022, Lithuania was forced to lift restrictions on rail transport to Kaliningrad. In 2010, Spiegel magazine reported that in 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev allegedly wanted to sell the Kaliningrad region to Germany for 70 billion German marks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He categorically denied any involvement and called the report \u201cfalse.\u201d However, there is an opinion that Gorbachev, either intentionally or through omission, did not clearly define the status of the land corridor to Kaliningrad when he granted independence to the Baltic republics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In March 2022, the former commander of the Polish Land Forces, General Waldemar Skrzypczak, in an interview with Super Express claimed that the Kaliningrad region is \u201cPolish territory under Russian occupation since 1945\u201d and that Warsaw should claim it as \u201cit was never Russian\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As early as 2021, Skrzypczak had described a possible scenario of military action in the Kaliningrad region with the participation of NATO forces, emphasizing that in the event of a conflict, the Baltic Fleet and the Kaliningrad Defense District would play a decisive role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NATO, internal contradictions and ideological conflicts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Retired politicians and generals who promote such extreme ideas speak loudly, while the leaderships of NATO countries, despite seeming to share a common anti-Russian background, are currently silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The contradictions are obvious: the Poles would react strongly if Kaliningrad were to return to K\u00f6nigsberg, the Lithuanians would not accept the Polish name Kr\u00f3lewiec, and neither the Germans nor the Lithuanians would allow Polish involvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the pervasive geopolitical games, today the city is home to about a million Russians, while Germans and Poles are few and far between.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daily life in Kaliningrad remains relatively calm, with the cost of living, according to reports and personal confirmations, lower than that of Moscow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Military exercises in the Baltics and the Russian response<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The annual NATO BALTOPS exercises, which have been held since 1971, are a key element of the Baltic power projection. The largest to date was BALTOPS-2024, involving 20 countries, over 50 ships, 25 aircraft, 60 helicopters and around 9,000 personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The landings took place at training grounds in Skrunda (Latvia), Ustka (Poland), Putlos (Germany) and on the island of Gotland (Sweden).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2025, the exercise began on 5 June from the German ports of Rostock and Warnem\u00fcnde, for the first time, with around 50 ships, an unspecified number of naval drones (surface and underwater), more than 25 aircraft and around 9,000 troops from 17 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The main objective was to practice a large-scale landing in the Kaliningrad\u2013Baltiysk region, as there are practically no other reliable NATO landing zones in the Baltic. In response, Russia implemented the \u201cJuly Storm 2025\u201d exercise in the Baltic, from 23 to 27 July 2025, with a strong display of new capabilities: among others, launching the Lancet munition from small vessels (such as the accessible assault vessel BK-167), confirming that such systems can be used from agile and smaller vessels, tugboats or even tankers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Lancet has a flight time of up to 30 minutes and a warhead equivalent to 3 kg of TNT. During the exercises, an unmanned sea vessel, guided by a Z-16 UAV, successfully hit a target, showing that sea and air drones operating in the region can control the central part of the Baltic. The range of the sea drone is estimated at at least 300 kilometers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Considerations for deterrence and escalation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The question that arises is whether such exercises are sufficient to permanently discourage NATO military leaderships from planning an attack on Kaliningrad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are suggestions for adding elements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. <\/strong>The first suggestion, as mentioned, came from the American side. <\/em>The guided-missile destroyer Paul Ignatius and the command ship Mount Whitney of the US Navy\u2019s 6th Fleet departed the Baltic before the end of BALTOPS-2025, immediately following the mutual missile attacks between Israel and Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The logic is that support for those who cause problems for the US and NATO worldwide should be strengthened, not on ideological grounds as Soviet leaders did, but based on a pragmatic approach that harks back to Winston Churchill\u2019s 22 June 1941 dictum: \u201cIf Hitler invaded hell, I would make an alliance with Satan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2.<\/strong> The second observation concerns the avoidance of losses:<\/em> it was pointed out with an ironic tone that it is a pity that some loads of IAB-500 aerial bombs were not dropped during the \u201cJuly Storm\u201d exercise. Their warheads, despite their low cost, contain 34 kg of TNT, 58 kg of phosphorus and 150 liters of kerosene, creating a huge and impressive \u201cmushroom\u201d explosion with a diameter of over 50 meters, which from a distance resembles that of the real 244N\/RK24 product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This image, the narrative claims, should act as a deterrent for \u201carrogant Europe\u201d \u2014 that is, to think about whether it is worth claiming or confronting Kaliningrad when the cost is the size of \u201cmushrooms\u201d over Warsaw, Berlin and Copenhagen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Poland, Germany and Lithuania seem to be envisioning a troop landing in Baltiysk, confident that Russia will not react harshly. 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