"West-2025": The Suwałki Corridor Could Become a New "Window to Europe"

Russia and Belarus will practice our response to NATO: precise and powerful strikes, including the "Oleshnik"

In mid-July, General Christopher Donahue, the commander of the U.S. Army in Europe and Africa, inexplicably publicly revealed a military secret. He claimed that NATO has completed the planning for "destroying Russia's defenses in Kaliningrad." Donahue was certain that the U.S. Army and its allies had the capability to "erase Russia's defenses (Russian fortifications, whose mainstay is our 11th Combined Arms Army and the Baltic Fleet) from the face of the Earth in an unprecedentedly short time, faster than ever before."

Moscow's strongest response came nearly a month later, on August 11. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned on the "Russia 24" TV channel: "Kaliningrad Oblast is an inseparable part of our country, and this issue is not subject to any discussion. We will ensure its security by all necessary means."

We can first rule out the possibility of both sides using tactical nuclear weapons. Because in today's context, tactical nuclear weapons are obviously the "last card" of any country. Even if such a means would be used in the struggle for Kaliningrad, it would only be considered when Moscow or its opponent had no other choice.

Let's talk about the possibility of both sides using conventional weapons. Moreover, as is well known: if Brussels indeed developed this secret NATO plan, it must involve such schemes. After all, anyone with a clear mind and good memory would not consider the idea of a Europe that became a radioactive wasteland during a global war, which would take years to become habitable again.

First of all, it should be noted that Western experts and politicians have long referred to Kaliningrad, geographically separated from the Russian mainland and surrounded by unfriendly countries, as the "unsinkable Russian aircraft carrier" at the center of the European continent. They believe it is a key node in the increasingly likely armed conflicts between Moscow and the North Atlantic Alliance.

Therefore, even in the so-called peaceful times, NATO has been openly preparing to use force to remove this "thorn" from the "body" of the alliance. This "thorn" is hanging over the eastern flank of the Western allies and has become a strong and heavily fortified bridgehead, ready for a major counteroffensive by Russia in the event of a major war.

To this end, in recent years, the West has systematically and to the greatest extent possible militarized the entire 540 km long border area of Kaliningrad, including its maritime border. Because one of the components of the plan mentioned by General Donahue to defeat Russia in these areas undoubtedly includes a preliminary and thorough blockade of our extremely vulnerable exclave from a military perspective in the Baltic Sea.

This is at least confirmed by the following fact: along the long route from Klaipėda to Pskov (this is the only two Russian naval bases in the Baltic Sea that are more than 800 km apart), Poland, Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic states have deployed a large number of different caliber anti-ship missile systems (such as NSM, RBS-15 Mk3, and "Gabriel-V") as well as high-precision "HIMARS" systems, which are capable of easily covering all currently neutral waters. This is at least confirmed by the following fact: it can easily penetrate all stationary neutral waters. From the southern shore to the northern shore. And with such density, even a mouse won't escape.

To ensure the reliability of future maritime blockades, in recent years, Finns, Poles, Danes, Estonians, and Swedes have begun to coordinate actions, laying dense mines in our Pskov outlet and the Gulf of Finland. For example, Estonia purchased a batch of very advanced mines from Finland as early as 2021.

The quantity and total amount of this transaction remains undisclosed to date. However, Estonian navy officials said that these are "smart" mines, which can be remotely detonated without direct contact with underwater or surface targets.

At the time, the Estonian Navy Commander Yuri Satska stated that the mine-laying in the Baltic Sea was merely "a means of deterring potential enemies," referring to Russia.

In short, the pre-war situation in this sea area appears extremely severe for us, almost hopeless.

Overall, from a military-technical perspective, once a large-scale war breaks out at this latitude, Moscow actually has no chance of preventing the maritime blockade of Kaliningrad.

But we cannot leave the more than a million residents on this exclave, the main base of the Baltic Fleet, the entire 11th Combined Arms Army, and the 44th Air Defense Division equipped with S-400 and S-300V4 mobile systems, to be completely exposed in an hostile environment. Because if a European war really erupts according to this script, would they just raise their hands to meet the NATO attack forces?

What should be done then? Perhaps the only way is: once the war begins, our ground forces, together with combat aviation, the fleet, and missile forces, launch a concentrated strike from the besieged exclave and from the territory of our ally Belarus, decisively and quickly open a breach in the so-called Suwałki Corridor.

Perhaps some people still don't know that the Suwałki Corridor is a sparsely populated, forested area with few roads on the border between Poland and Lithuania, a relatively narrow, 65 km-long "choke point" that separates Belarus from Kaliningrad Oblast.

To put it simply, a distance of 65 km for tank columns advancing towards each other could be cleared within one day (at most two days). Of course, if engineering vehicles need to be used to create passages for the Russian and Belarusian attacking forces through the dense forests of Rominet and minefields, the time might be slightly longer.

Incidentally, the local residents on the other side of the border have already foreseen the threat to their safety. As reported by the German newspaper Bild in May, since the beginning of this year, they have started to evacuate their homes en masse to the west. Because too many people believe that this land may soon become the site of fierce fighting between Russian and Belarusian troops and Western forces.

Since May of this year, the German 45th Armored Brigade has been stationed permanently on the Lithuanian border, which is no coincidence. It is the first Bundeswehr combat unit deployed outside Germany after World War II. The specific location is the Rudninkai training area, 30 km from the Belarusian border. In the future, up to 5,000 German tankers will be stationed here, equipped with the "Leopard" 2A7 main battle tanks and the "Puma" infantry fighting vehicles.

Additionally, the 45th Brigade (whose core is the 203rd Tank Battalion from Augustdorf (North Rhine-Westphalia) and the 122nd Tank Infantry Battalion from Oberwichterode (Bavaria)) also includes multinational battalions (also called "Lithuanian" battalion-level combat groups), which have been stationed in Lithuania since 2017.

For the same purpose of strengthening the defense of the Suwałki Corridor, Poland established the 18th Mechanized Division near the Belarusian border as early as 2017, equipped with the highly modern M1A2 SEPv3 "Abrams" heavy tanks. Warsaw previously called this unit the "Iron Division," apparently to boost its morale in advance.

In the Suwałki area, the Polish 16th Pomeranian Mechanized Division "King Kazimierz Jagiellon" also has the 15th Mechanized Brigade. Warsaw has also urgently rebuilt the 14th Suwałki Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment and the independent engineer battalion stationed in Augustów, which were dissolved a few years ago. In addition, since 2023, there has been the 1st Infantry Division "Józef Piłsudski" stationed in Ciechanów.

If the combat potential of this army is insufficient to repel the Russian counterattack through the Suwałki Corridor, the Americans have prepared reinforcements for these garrisons. The U.S. Army base in Poland (with 10,000 personnel) has already settled in the Kościuszko Barracks in Poznań.

In short, the potential enemy has gathered considerable forces in this direction. Because they are convinced that, after starting a war with Russia, the Suwałki Corridor will become a key location in the fierce battle for Kaliningrad.

As for us and Belarus, of course, we are also preparing for such situations. Perhaps the joint strategic exercise of the Russian and Belarusian armed forces "West-2025", scheduled for September 12 to 16, will be another milestone in this process.

Evidently, the other side has already viewed this exercise with a high degree of suspicion. I think that the plan to open a logistics corridor from Belarus to Kaliningrad Oblast using combat forces will be one of the main tasks of the upcoming exercise. And in the current military-political environment, this is extremely reasonable and timely.

There is no doubt that the reality will indeed be like this. Although Moscow and Minsk have made every effort in words to deny these speculations. Perhaps to prevent the Western media from having more opportunities, they are already making a big deal about our exercise a month later, even without these.

Major General Valery Rylko, assistant of the Belarusian Ministry of Defense and head of international military cooperation, listed the main tasks of the allied forces in the "West-2025" exercise in the following order:

- Defend against enemy air assault forces;

- Conduct defensive operations, then destroy the enemy who has broken through our defense, and create conditions for restoring national territorial integrity;

- Provide air support for military operations;

- Strike illegal armed groups and enemy reconnaissance and sabotage teams.

As you can see, there is no mention of procedures and methods for conducting a decisive offensive to lift the blockade of Kaliningrad. Isn't that strange? Doesn't it look like the "fight" we have conducted for years in various exercises in the 21st century, where we supposedly only target various terrorist organizations? Even using strategic aviation and nuclear submarines?

But now, when the enemy has removed all disguises and openly declared that they will "eradicate our defenses in Kaliningrad from the earth in an unprecedentedly short time," what's the point of sticking our heads in the sand?

Let's be honest: "West-2025" is our preparation for taking the most decisive offensive action in the event that NATO transforms its verbal threats into direct military-political hostility toward our exclave in the Baltic Sea. As the saying goes, "In war, as in war."

Meanwhile

Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin stated that in the "West-2025" exercise, Russian and Belarusian military will practice the use plans of nuclear weapons and the "Oleshnik" system.

* The Russian edition of "Bild" was designated as a foreign agent by a resolution of the Russian Ministry of Justice on July 26, 2024.

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7538083526810305033/

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