As of: March 31, 2024, 5:51 p.m
By: Karsten Hinzmann
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Russian recruits during training in Luhansk. The region is occupied by Russia. British media are expecting a new, massive mobilization to storm the Baltics. (Archive photo) © Alexey Maishev/imago
The Balts will soon see themselves captured by a Russia like Stalin's time. NATO reassures: everyone should look after themselves first.
Riga - Hannes Adomeit dated the root of all today's evil caused by Vladimir Putin to August 23, 1939: On that day "the foundation stone for the elimination of their sovereignty was laid," wrote the former professor of Eastern European Studies for the
Federal Agency for Civic Education.
“Under massive pressure and threats of violence, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940. According to the then Soviet and current Russian reading, they 'asked' Moscow to send and station troops for their protection and 'voluntarily' joined the USSR."
The Baltic states have now been part of the North Atlantic Defense Alliance for 20 years, and fear has returned to the Baltics. “Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have enjoyed 'strong collective security' since joining NATO, but have never faced 'a more formidable threat,'” writes the British
Sun
about statements made by Baltic diplomats. The
Telegraph
finds even more drastic words: NATO must be prepared for Russia to launch an “existential” war against the Baltic states, which, according to officials, is masked by a “blizzard of disinformation.” The diplomats are relying on a Kremlin report from the beginning of this year, which allegedly contains a ten-point plan by Putin to attack the Baltics and thus the alleged start of the Third World War - the
Sun
, for example, had reported on it.
British media predict: Russia will march towards the Baltics in October
Accordingly, the attack on the West should begin in June of this year - Russia would then have mobilized an additional 200,000 men and, due to the wavering support from the West, launched another offensive against Ukraine. According to the
Sun
,
Putin would then follow up his successes in Ukraine by launching a "first covert and later overt attack on the West using a wave of cyber and hybrid warfare strategies," according to the
Sun.
“These attacks are leading to spreading crises and helping to incite Russian ethnic minorities to cause conflict and chaos in the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.” Around 50,000 troops are then expected to be stationed on the border with Poland and Lithuania in September troops and medium-range missiles in Kaliningrad in October in order to move closer to the Suwalki Gap.
The
Sun
considers Vladimir Putin's deployment plan to be realistic - and a feint: "However, the leaked report states that the troop movement is a deliberate attempt to deceive the West and suggest an imminent attack on NATO." This attack via The
Sun
predicts Suwalki gap
at the beginning of October this year. Accordingly, Putin is aiming for the Baltics to hit NATO.
“If Russia asserts itself in Ukraine and keeps 17 to 18 percent of Ukrainian national territory permanently occupied, then I think it is not unlikely that in the long term there will be a Russian attempt to conventionally attack one or more Baltic states.”
Political scientist Carlo Masala told the Funke media group
Political scientist Fabian Hoffmann sees the matter crystal clear to the
Tagesschau
: He expects Russia to attack NATO within two to three years after the end of the Ukraine war. Since Vladimir Putin's army is conventionally inferior to the West, his only option would be a missile-based attack from the Kaliningrad enclave against parts of the Baltics. NATO must adapt to this. Other scientists consider this pessimism to be exaggerated - although, for example, the German political scientist Carlo Masala said
in
an
article
on
do,” as he writes. Putin's calculation would be a minimally invasive intervention into NATO territory in order to ensure as much as possible that the loss of parts of the Baltics would appear to be too small for NATO to retaliate conventionally or even nuclearly.
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Science suspects: Putin expects NATO not to risk nuclear escalation
According to military expert Carlo Masala, a military success by Russia in Ukraine would increase the threat to the Baltics, as he told the
Funke media group
. “If Russia asserts itself in Ukraine and keeps 17 to 18 percent of Ukrainian national territory permanently occupied, then I think it is not unlikely that in the long term there will be a Russian attempt to conventionally attack one or more Baltic states. In his opinion, the lesson that Russia has learned is that no country wants to take massive action against a nuclear weapons state. Moscow could ask itself whether NATO would be prepared to risk nuclear escalation if Russia conventionally attacked a relatively small territory; even if it is a NATO partner.
Estonian Ambassador Viljar Lubi, Latvian Ambassador Ivita Burmistre and Lithuanian Ambassador Lina Zigmantaite expressed their concerns on the 20th anniversary of their countries' NATO accession. In a nod to officials downplaying the risk posed by Russia, they told the
Telegraph
: "Our warnings about the latent and growing threat from the East were too lightly dismissed in some Allied capitals." This complaint echoes the assessment that also Historian Adomeit had already published: The NATO membership of the three states and their role in the Atlantic Alliance remains a sore point in Moscow today. In his view, it had tried to draw a “red line” along the borders of the Soviet Union, which NATO should not have crossed in the course of its eastward expansion; but this was in vain.
Putin in need of explanation: The Baltics have surpassed Russia in terms of prosperity
Military historian Sönke Neitzel, however, summarizes Russia's reasons for the sublime aggression against the Baltics as being more than just military, as he expressed on
phoenix
: “Lithuania is the first Soviet republic to declare itself independent, in January 1991, before Estonia , before Latvia, before Ukraine. The desire for freedom has not been stifled by all these eventful stories in the 20th century." A thesis that is supported by the Austrian political scientist Lukas Bittner on the opinion portal
Pragmaticus
- Bittner sees the reason in the different economic developments that the Russian dictator would have been in ever greater need for explanation: “The former Baltic Soviet republics and Eastern European states had recorded an incredible increase in prosperity compared to Russia. This transfer of wealth from the former Eastern Bloc states was not based on their NATO membership, but rather on the transfer of wealth and the internal market within the European Union.”
“However, I would like to point out that cyber activity from another country is also sufficient to trigger Article 5. Article 5 cannot only be triggered in the event of a direct attack.”
Admiral Rob Bauer told the Baltic Times
According to Bittner, this led to the formation of the “image of the West as an enemy, with degenerative norms and values from a Russian perspective.” And, as Eastern Europe researcher Adomeit continues: According to interpretations in Moscow, NATO membership has given Russia a boost to unfriendly or hostile forces in Tallinn, Riga and Vilna. “Above all, the Baltic states' support for the policies of Washington's neoconservative government in East Central Europe has been the target of Russian attacks. This affected, among other things, the plans of the administration under President Bush to station components of the American national missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic and to pave the way for Ukraine and Georgia to become members of NATO.”
Putin began to stir up the Balts' fears as early as 2021, as
Zeit Online
reports: In the dispute over troop movements on the Russian-Ukrainian border, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned NATO against expanding its influence to the east. Putin said he would insist on concrete agreements in this regard in negotiations with the USA and its allies. Russia wants to “prevent NATO’s eastward expansion and the stationing of weapons systems in the immediate vicinity of Russian territory.” The political scientist Kai-Olaf Lang had already spoken of Putin's debt when the Balts joined the EU in 2003 in an essay for the
Friedrich Ebert Foundation
: “Important steps are still missing for a breakthrough in Baltic-Russian relations. Moscow should refrain from viewing the Baltic states as part of a special sphere of influence.”
Balts in fear: They fear cultural extinction like in Stalin's time
However, Lang was apparently too optimistic: “It is possible that the NATO membership of the Baltic states will contribute to an objectification of mutual relations,” he speculated at the time. The opposite has happened, as the diplomats have now expressed, recalling Russia's times under Stalin's dictatorship - their joint statement predicts for the Baltics that what Ukraine is experiencing - "deportation, torture, kidnapping of children and cultural erasure" - brought back the “darkest memories and fears” of the Soviet occupation under Stalin. However, the NATO leadership contradicts this. Vehemently.
“There is no indication that Russia is planning an attack on a NATO member state,” Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of the NATO military committee, told reporters in Riga, as
reported by the
Baltic Times
. “I don't think there is any direct threat. The problem is that Russia's ambitions extend beyond Ukraine. We know this, so the alliance as a whole must do more.”
Bauer assured that the alliance has now recognized Russia as a concrete threat and has readjusted its efforts for collective defense, but does not foresee a broad-based attack, but initially only disruptions by separatists. When asked by journalists whether NATO would consider it a threat if something similar happened in one of the Baltic states, Bauer replied that according to Article 3 of the NATO treaty, every state must be able to defend itself. Bauer: “If something like this were to happen in a country, then it is the responsibility of that country to ensure its security.” This also applies to hybrid threats; at least initially. “However, I would like to point out that cyber activity from another country is also sufficient to trigger Article 5. Article 5 cannot only be triggered in the event of a direct attack,” emphasized Bauer. (hz)