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A Ukrainian general is currently demanding consistency: He fears Russia’s aggressive expansion. And that NATO’s efforts are coming too late.
Kiev – “We must help Ukraine defend itself against Russian tanks and heavy artillery,” said Vytautas Landsbergis. Europe must not capitulate to Putin, the politician demanded Time online. That was 2015, and reality proved the former Lithuanian head of state right – back then Wladimir Putin just annexed Crimea in violation of international law. And the dictator’s urge for expansion Russia the Balts still fear. “We feel that the war is close to us,” the quote quotes ZDF Gabrielus Landsbergis. Lithuania’s foreign minister is now reinforced in his fears by Ukrainian Major General Vadym Skibitsky, who expects that Putin could overrun the Baltics within seven days.
Newsweek reports on an interview with Skibitsky in Economistin which the deputy head of military intelligence of the Ukraine According to the magazine, he was demanding that the West take decisive action against Russia: “The Russians will take the Baltics in seven days,” he said loudly Newsweek. “NATO’s reaction time is ten days.” Skibitsky uses May 9th as an opportunity to warn about Russia’s ambitions – May 9th is celebrated in Russia as the Soviet Union’s “Victory Day” over Nazi Germany, as the Deutschlandfunk reported, but with its own historical interpretation: The state constructs heroic stories instead of remembering suffering, say Thielko Grieß and Florian Kellermann. According to Ukrainian intelligence officer Skibitsky, the fighting would escalate into a Russian offensive in the near future.
Fateful day: May 9th could spur Russia on further offensives
He expects Russia to follow through on its “liberation” plan, as he says Economist said that all eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine would be pushed forward and that his further action would depend on this. “The speed and success of the advance will determine when and where the Russians strike next,” Skibitsky said. According to the estimate, May 9th could be Deutschlandfunks Actually dynamize Russia’s actions – according to its own thinking, Russia is on the defensive; This would also be drummed into the Russian population through various channels, from posters to social networks: “Nazism has taken root in Kiev this time and receive active help from Warsaw, Berlin and Washington. “Russia is now, as it was then, fighting as a champion of good against evil, for which deprivation is unavoidable for Russians,” report Grieß and Kellermann.
“The Baltic side of the border is likely to become one of the most heavily fortified peacetime borders in the world.”
According to them, in Russian thinking the war in Ukraine is the continuation of the “Great Patriotic War,” as the Second World War is called in Russia. The Baltics could actually become the second chapter after Ukraine. “An era of Putin’s wars has begun,” wrote the Lithuanian Landsbergis in 2015 Time online. In any case, the Balts are preparing to have to defend their independence. On March 11, 1990, Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union, followed by Estonia and then Latvia on August 20 and 21, 1991.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Hitler and Stalin had divided Eastern Europe between themselves through their non-aggression pact in order to assert their influence in the respective countries Federal Agency for Civic Education writes: The Soviet Union therefore occupied the Baltics, set up its own regime and declared this as an “accession of the countries as socialist Soviet republics to the USSR, while the Baltic countries classify this to this day as an occupation and annexation that violates international law.”
Fateful months: “They always knew that April and May would be a difficult time for us”
In any case, the Ukrainian military man Skibitsky sees a rosy future for his country, as he says Economist made it clear to him: “Our problem is very simple: we have no weapons. “They always knew that April and May would be a difficult time for us,” says the intelligence officer, positioning himself opposite his President Volodymyr Zelensky, who had broken off peace negotiations with Russia. Skibitsky speaks out against this Economist for negotiations. They might become unavoidable at some point. The Balts, on the other hand, are apparently intensifying their course of confrontation.
It has been clear since mid-January that the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are working on a common defense line – a chain of bunkers along the seam between the Baltics and Russia. Lukas Milevski sees this defensive belt as “a completely logical answer to the special geostrategic challenges” of the Balts vis-à-vis Russia Foreign Policy Research Institute from Philadelphia. On the other hand, the scientist expresses the suspicion that this bunkering of the borders of three NATO partners could reinforce the Russians’ claustrophobia towards NATO and encourage them to engage in a strategic, tactical or operational confrontation. Or more simply: Vladimir Putin could feel even more challenged by this.
Community of fate: the Balts and the Russian minorities
After all, border problems are a trigger for the atmospheric disturbances between the Baltic states and their neighbors; Russia reacts just as irritably to the Baltic alliance with NATO as well as to the status of Russian minorities in the Baltics, which ultimately fuels the dispute over the autonomy of the Baltic states again and again: Both sides apparently equally see the other side’s foreign policy as a threat to their respective autonomy true. The Federal Agency for Civic Education puts ethnic Russians at 25.6 percent of the Latvian population, 24.9 percent in Estonia and 4.8 percent in Lithuania – a potentially attractive reason for Vladimir Putin to take similar action in the Baltics as he did with the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“The ultimate hope is that the increasing willingness of the Baltic states and the broader alliance to fight Russia, which includes the construction of the Baltic defense line, would be enough to convince the Kremlin to be deterred,” Milevski writes . The world in Eastern Europe is currently hanging in limbo.
Fateful year: The first bunkers against Russia are to be built in 2025
The first of the estimated 600 bunkers is scheduled to be built in 2025, writes the magazine Breaking Defense; In addition, depots are being created for the storage of material for anti-tank barriers. The ZDF speaks of an “Iron Curtain 2.0”. Milevski says opposite ZDF: “The Baltic side of the border is likely to become one of the most heavily fortified peacetime borders in the world.” Overall, the Baltic states expect Russian troops to march on their territory in a maximum of five years, or more likely in three. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas had this Times expressed to. At the same time, however, it is doubtful that Russia will allow the measures to move forward without reacting.
Until now, NATO had relied on being able to quickly move reinforcements to the Baltics in the event of a defense. It becomes clear again and again that logistical efforts under enemy influence would be challenging. The war in Ukraine, on the other hand, makes it clear that strengthening the walls of the Baltic states could effectively delay attacking troops, writes Justina Budginaite-Froehly Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington DC. She speaks of the Baltic troops and their efforts as NATO’s “tripwire forces,” i.e. the troops that Russia would first have to stumble over. Like the Latvian news portal lsm.lv As reported in mid-January, the former commander-in-chief of the Latvian armed forces spoke on the radio in favor of his country withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention.
Question of fate: Is Putin simply timing it?
Raimonds Graube wants to have freedom of action outside the convention to secure his territory with landmines or anti-personnel mines; also because Russia itself stayed away from the convention. Graube declared loudly in January lsm.lv, “that mines can reduce the enemy’s speed of advance. “And in the case of Latvia, given the size of the territory and the other special features, I think it is a very important weapon.” But the bunkers and planned anti-tank barriers may be enough. Lukas Milevski remains skeptical: Without Putin acting, no one can say why he remains calm. Maybe he’s put off, says Milevski, maybe he’s actually uninterested, or maybe he’s just waiting for the right time.
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