Russia is now reduced to issuing periodic nuclear threats about imagined attempts by neighboring countries to take away its artificially created post-WWII Soviet enclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. Not that long ago, Kaliningrad was deemed too hot to touch. But Russia, now rendered a relatively pusillanimous global power, finds it necessary to remind the world of that erstwhile geo-political presumption:
Russia threatens to strike Nato with nuclear weapons ‘right from the outset’ if the alliance tries to cut off its European outpost Kaliningrad
Russia has warned Nato it would be ready to resort to nuclear weapons if the Western alliance attempted to cut off Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave that borders the Baltic Sea.
In a document sent to Nato and seen by Reuters, Moscow accused the alliance of a ‘dangerous and reckless course’ that entailed ‘high risks of the outbreak of a direct armed conflict’.
Russia will be ready to use the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons, in order to defend its territory should NATO countries undertake any attempt aimed at isolating the Kaliningrad Region from the rest of the country,’ the diplomatic note said.
The warning highlighted Moscow’s urgent concern at what it has presented as a growing Nato threat to Kaliningrad, a heavily militarised Russian territory that is wedged between Poland and Lithuania and is slightly bigger than the US state of Connecticut.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16173147/Russia-Nato-nuclear-weapons-Kaliningrad.html
That Russia actually finds it necessary to even issue such a warning at all is quite revealing … a hubristic announcement of its current weakened state couched in bluster and threats. Ain’t nobody scared, Putin.
Quite contrary to the commonly presumed super-max militarization of Kaliningrad, the EU Observer notes that most of the Russian garrison in Kaliningrad and their weaponry have, out of necessity, been already deployed to the battle fields of Ukraine. Kaliningrad is nothing of the bristling armed fortress it once may have been:
Russia is losing its grip on Kaliningrad, despite using the exclave for anti-Nato scare stories
“Russia has almost no ground forces left in Kaliningrad: they have all gone to Ukraine[emphasis mine]. Nor does the Russian air force there have the kind of airfields and hangars needed for a real war.”
Nato, especially since Sweden and Finland joined the alliance, is overwhelmingly dominant in land, sea, and air in the region: a point underlined by its recent surveillance exercises in the region.
In short, the nuclear bluster is irrelevant. Nobody is menacing Kaliningrad from the outside. And the real question is when and how, but not if, the Kremlin will lose it in the end.
The EU Observer goes on to say that internal conditions within the enclave itself is more threatening to Russia’s control than any external forces:
Now Moscow’s grip on this exclave — an island of Russian territory sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania — is increasingly fragile. Not because anyone will sever the precarious air, sea, and land routes that keep it supplied, but because of Russia’s all-too-real, corrupt, authoritarian, and incompetent system of government.
The weakness of the Russian system, aggravated by the cost of the disastrous war in Ukraine[emphasis mine], makes holding on to Kaliningrad unsustainable: economically, socially, demographically, and politically.
So NATO and the neighboring countries, especially the Baltic states, seeing the flashing lights of an incipient implosion, are preparing themselves for the potential internal crack-up of Kaliningrad and its implications for regional security.
As our own Anne Elk once opined here on kos regarding how Ukraine has successfully pulled the sheet off of Russia’s smoke and mirrors “super power” status (and I paraphrase) …“you can be a super power, until you demonstrate that you are not”.
The final bill for Putin’s misadventure in Ukraine will soon come due for the people of Russia. And it will be humongous … loss of its empire, including Kaliningrad may be part of that reckoning. ADAPTIVE INDOMITABLE UKRAINE’s central role in ensuring that eventuality is assured. The Baltic states and the world at large would be much the better for it.
SLAVA UKRAINI ! PEREMOHA(Victory) !!
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