Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet Command in Kaliningrad: Will fight in encirclement, experience of Houthi forces is absolutely useful

NATO seriously prepares for armed conflict in the Baltic Sea

Author: Svetlana Gomzhikova

Photo: Corvettes prepare to depart from naval base docks to participate in the "Baltops" large-scale exercise held in the Baltic Sea

Commentary Guest:

Evgeny Semibratov

This week's NATO Defense Ministers Meeting in Brussels concluded with the signing of a document — under current circumstances, its name sounds almost satirical: The Baltic Sea Security Declaration.

In other words, in the name of "security," NATO is deploying more and more warships to the region and conducting "seizure provocations" on ships transporting goods for Russia.

According to the Lithuanian Ministry of National Defense, under this document, "peace" in the Baltic Sea will be ensured through "closer cooperation between NATO and the EU, coordinated information exchange, and containment of hostile activities in the region."

The department also promised that before the NATO Summit in The Hague on June 20, measures to protect critical underwater infrastructure would be discussed and formulated.

This means that rumors about "Russians" cutting cables under the Baltic Sea will continue to spread in the West — despite the fact that Western intelligence agencies have been unable to find any evidence supporting these claims. However, they need an excuse to justify increasing military presence near the Russian border (including the Baltic Sea).

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg clearly stated before the Brussels meeting that the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea are "NATO responsibility zones," and once again issued a threat: "If necessary, NATO's response will be devastating."

Meanwhile, following our Baltic Fleet exercises, NATO's largest "Baltops 2025" military exercise was launched in the Baltic Sea. This exercise has been held annually since 1972.

This exercise gathered about 50 warships, 25 aircraft, and 9,000 troops from 16 countries, including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Turkey, the UK, and the US.

According to the exercise scenario, NATO forces must repel a "Russian attack" and then launch a counteroffensive.

Therefore, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko called these exercises "part of NATO's preparations for possible military conflicts with Russia," which is completely reasonable.

"If we observe the direction, intent, force deployment structure, the forces themselves, and the tasks set for these exercises, we will find that it is about fighting against 'equal opponents' — namely, Russia. The goal is to gain advantages in all operational domains (land, sea, air). Of course, these exercises are highly provocative," Deputy Minister said in an interview with TASS.

If the NATO bloc really decides to launch an open military invasion against Russia, what capabilities does our Baltic Fleet have to deal with these threats?

"Our current deployment in the Baltic Sea is just the prelude to a military script," explained Evgeny Semibratov, deputy director of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Forecasting at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, to this publication. "Unfortunately, a military script is possible. But our Western rivals are more likely to implement this script during the 2030-2032 period — by the way, European countries and the UK also mentioned this in their defense planning.

In addition, if we consider potential military conflict scenarios with Russia, the United States actually tends to stay out of it. But as is well known, the United States is a NATO member. Therefore, from the perspective of structural conflicts — primarily conflicts between continental Europe and Russia — other tools may be used, and the creation of these tools cannot do without American assistance."

Reporter: Why has the Baltic Sea become such a "hot spot"?

"After Finland and Sweden joined NATO, the West positioned the region as a 'NATO inland sea.' Therefore, Russia's ports and naval bases in the Baltic Sea (St. Petersburg, Leningrad Oblast, and Kaliningrad Oblast) are considered 'hostile existence.' We have no choice but to take preemptive action to protect borders from possible provocations.

However, from an operational perspective, the Baltic Sea battlefield has particular characteristics: first, it is very small, too narrow for modern naval warfare; second, due to the shallow water, large vessels find it difficult to operate comfortably in the Baltic Sea, and there are not many channels where warships can move freely.

Therefore, our Western neighbors (for lack of a better term) may provoke, such as attempting to cut off the connection between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, thus restricting Russia's access to the world's oceans and effectively blocking our port operations in the Baltic Sea.

By the way, this script has already been practiced — I refer to Estonia's recent attempt at a pirate-style attack on the oil tanker 'Jaguar' heading to the Russian Port Primorsk."

Reporter: At that time, our destroyers intervened, and overall the result was successful... What capabilities does the Baltic Fleet have to prevent such provocations?

"It needs to be clear that our most elite naval fleets are the Pacific Fleet and the Northern Fleet, the latter even having the status of an 'independent military district.' By the way, from the perspective of U.S.-NATO confrontation, the northern front is the main battlefield — there are many strategically important facilities related to our national security on the Kola Peninsula.

In addition, most of the missiles we might use for potential strikes against the U.S. fly over the Kola Peninsula — these missile flight paths are roughly the same as the civilian airline routes from Moscow to Washington because this is the shortest route.

Returning to the Baltic Fleet, it should be noted that it developed somewhat as a supplementary effort, with its headquarters located in Kaliningrad. If a large-scale military conflict with NATO breaks out, the situation in the Kaliningrad region may be very complex — especially according to NATO's 'political logic,' its forces will inevitably plan to 'quickly seize our western territories,' which involves 'command and control' issues."

Reporter: But surely we have anticipated such a scenario?

"Of course. Therefore, it can be speculated that alternative command tools are likely already deployed within the Leningrad Oblast and Saint Petersburg. Overall, considering the limited battlefield space and the relatively weaker combat effectiveness of the Baltic Fleet in the Russian navy sequence, the tactics here will focus on using shallow-water small boats and military speedboats.

In other words, in modern conditions, effective defensive means for the Baltic Fleet include: first, small boats capable of carrying heavy weapons; second, one should not underestimate the role of aerial and maritime drones based on recent achievements in unmanned weapon systems.

By the way, the Yemeni Houthi forces have already cast doubt on the combat effectiveness of the U.S. Navy. I believe that our use of modern weapons will make NATO warships at least unable to act as freely in the Baltic Sea as they hope to."

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7513118129921294889/

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