How The Baltics Are Building New Defense Forces Against A Russian Invasion

–Analysis–

In his interview with Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that Moscow has no interests in Poland or Latvia. He would only deploy his army against these countries if they attacked Russia. Territorial claims there are “absolutely out of the question”. Baltic capitals are not buying any of it.

On Tuesday, a few days after Carlson’s interview, it became known that Russia had put Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas on its Most Wanted list. She is the first foreign head of government to be pursued by Russia as an alleged criminal.

The calls by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for greater defense capabilities are accelerating. The three countries’ defense spending is above the NATO target of 2% and is set to rise to 3%.

The countries have been warning for years that their territory should not just be a “tripwire” for the Russian army. In the event of war, the attackers must be beaten back immediately instead of betting on recapturing lost territory in a counter-offensive.

This is why the Transatlantic Alliance is strengthening the NATO “Enhanced Forward Presence” mission in the three countries, which has been in place since 2017. Germany, for example, wants to be present in Lithuania in brigade strength, which means around 4,000 soldiers present. The airspace above the Baltic countries, which do not have their own air force, is guarded by the NATO mission “Integrated Air and Missile Defense.”

Every meter of NATO territory

But the Baltic countries believe that expanding existing capacities is not enough. Leaders in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius now want to build a joint line of defense on the eastern border with Russia and Belarus. So far, Estonia has announced that it wants to defend its almost 300-kilometer-long land border with Russia with 600 bunkers, which are to cost 60 million euros. Lithuania and Latvia have similar plans. The defensive line is intended to cast in concrete the NATO promise to fight for every meter of Alliance territory.

They are clearly inspired by the Surovikin Line in southeastern Ukraine

The Baltic heads of state were clearly inspired by the Surovikin Line in southeastern Ukraine. It is an intricate system of defensive fortifications, anti-tank barriers and minefields several hundred kilometers long and several kilometers wide in certain places. Last year, it helped the Russians to hold off the Ukrainian counter-offensive. There are however doubts about the effectiveness of this “Baltic line” in the event of a Russian attack, as the situation in the Baltic states and on the front in eastern Ukraine are not comparable.

If Russia were to start a war in the Baltic states, there would be a massive attack, with columns of tanks rolling towards the border, missile strikes against military and civilian targets, and helicopter missions in the hinterland — if one can even speak of a hinterland in the small Baltic states. This is how the authors of a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a U.S. think tank, describe it.

Unlike Ukraine, the three countries lack strategic depth. This means that there is no area where the armed forces could retreat to and regroup in a fight against Russia. The defensive line would potentially slow down the advance of the Russian armored columns — but nothing more.

There is a further problem: the three countries have signed the treaty banning anti-personnel mines, hence the border area cannot be mined. In Estonia, the vice-chairman of the parliamentary defense committee has already called for withdrawal from the agreement.

Limited defense systems

Air defense systems are stationed in the highly militarized Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, as well as electronic jamming transmitters that can interfere with the reception of GPS signals throughout the Baltic Sea region. Russian Iskander missiles, whose 500-kilometer range from Kaliningrad covers the entire Baltic region and reaches as far as Berlin, are a major threat. The Baltic countries have no antidote, as the local NASAMS air defense systems deployed as part of the NATO mission have too short a range.

Latvia and Estonia ordered Iris-T systems from Germany for one billion euros. But as the war in Ukraine has shown, these can shoot down Russian drones and some cruise missiles, but not heavy ballistic missiles.

There is a risk that Russia could close the so-called Suwalki Gap between the exclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus in the event of war — and thus the only land connection between Lithuania and Poland.

NATO support essential

Added to this is the immense logistical problem faced by NATO in quickly deploying additional forces to the Baltic states. The Baltic countries, which were historically connected to the Russian rail network, still have no connection to the European rail network. The Rail Baltica project, which connects the three countries with Poland, is not due to be completed until 2030.

The three Baltic states are certainly not defenseless in the face of a possible attack. They have ordered the dreaded mobile HIMARS systems from the United States, which are also to be equipped with ATACMS missiles that can fly up to 300 kilometers. This missile artillery could not stop the Russians for long, writes Lukas Milevski, Fellow at the U.S. think tank Foreign Policy Research Institute.

In the end, it all depends on how quickly NATO can deploy additional forces to the Baltic states — and what Washington does. If Donald Trump becomes president, U.S. loyalty to NATO will be put into question, at the very least.