The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
The 60-mile ‘Achilles heel’ that Putin could exploit
Lying between Poland and Lithuania, the strategically vital region could have a bearing on all our futures
The Suwalki Gap is a quiet stretch of rolling fields, forests and lakes on the edge of Nato’s easternmost border. It runs for 60 miles between Poland and Lithuania, connecting Belarus and the Russian military enclave of Kaliningrad. It is here Nato generals fear a full-blown conflict with Moscow could begin, according to a drill scenario prepared by the German army.
If Vladimir Putin moved his forces from Belarus across the gap to Kaliningrad in a sudden thrust, he could cut Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania off from their allies in central and western Europe. The corridor has thus become known to Western military planners as Nato’s “Achilles heel” or, simply, the most dangerous place in the world.
Despite Russia having sustained heavy losses in Ukraine, and the war there still raging on, Europe has been warned to prepare for the Kremlin to return as a serious military threat to the alliance’s eastern flank.
Yesterday, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said Putin could declare war on Nato in “five to eight years”. It came a day after Admiral Rob Bauer, chairman of the alliance’s military committee, said civilians needed to be ready for a war with Russia within 20 years. But behind the public warnings are swathes of detailed military plans that have been sketched out to prepare Western militaries for what could come.
“Alliance Defence 2025”, a German army document, examines several ways war with Russia could break out, including the seizure of the Suwalki
Gap. The scenario, drawn up to assist with preparations for a large-scale military exercise, imagines Moscow mobilising 200,000 more troops this February for an offensive in Ukraine.
By June, Russian forces are making significant advances, while Kyiv is hampered by faltering Western support and interest in its war efforts.
With Ukraine and the West on the back foot, Putin seeks to seize on his successes by launching a series of cyber attacks on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, at the same time whipping up tensions amongst ethnic Russian minorities still living in the Baltic states.
Kaja Kallas, the Estonian prime minister, became the first Nato leader this week to suggest Russia was behind widespread GPS navigation disruption across the southern Baltic Sea. According to the German scenario, Moscow’s hybrid strikes on the Baltics would trigger clashes that Putin could use as the pretext to hold a large-scale manoeuvre exercise in Western Russia and Belarus from September.
Some 50,000 troops would be drilled in how to conduct a war against Nato, including the capture of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – and possibly bombing campaigns on western Europe.
The exercise would likely mirror drills conducted last year by Russia in Belarus, which Estonian military intelligence said demonstrated that Moscow “still has enough strength to exert credible military pressure in our region”.
A month after the manoeuvres were launched, the Kremlin would claim that Kaliningrad was under an immediate threat of Nato attack, moving mediumranged missiles and more troops to the exclave. The troop movements are all designed to put a gradual squeeze on the Suwalki Gap, which would now sit between two large gatherings of Russian forces. It would gradually escalate into an “artificially induced border conflict”, according to German planning, with “riots with numerous deaths” further inflaming tensions in the area.
Germany’s armed forces expects Nato’s diplomatic efforts to spring into action by December, shortly after the US presidential election, when a Joe Biden defeat would leave Washington rudderless. A special meeting of Nato leaders would be held in January 2025, with 30,000 German troops dispatched close to the Suwalki Gap as a deterrence.
Moscow would use a corresponding extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council to accuse the West of plotting an attack on Russian soil. But by now, the Kremlin would have around 70,000 troops established in Belarus.
It isn’t until May 2025, according to the German scenario, that Nato seeks to activate its “measures for credible deterrence” to prevent a strike on the Suwalki Gap from the directions of Belarus and Kaliningrad.
A deployment of 300,000 troops would be sent to the alliance’s eastern flanks, where the likes of Poland and Estonia have been warning of heightened threat levels from Russia. If the Russian forces invaded the Gap before Nato troops arrived, it is unlikely Moscow would engage in a prolonged ground war with the alliance, according to analysts.
“The Russian doctrine suggests that Russia would attempt to coerce Nato into submission by signalling the ability to inflict progressively greater amounts of damage,” Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project, said.
While Nato’s Article 5 demands members collectively respond to an attack on any part of Nato territory, it does not require military retaliation.
A seizure of the Suwalki Gap would kick off frantic political discussions on whether to strike the Russian troops that have moved into the territory.
A failure to adequately respond would effectively destroy the credibility of Article five and end Nato’s reputation as a defensive alliance.
Some Western European leaders, and a Donald Trump-led US, may feel the threat of war with nuclear-armed Russia is not worth the risk. Putin, meanwhile, could up the ante by striking civilian infrastructure in Europe to show he will not back down, Mr Hoffman said. “The message to Nato governments: Don’t come to the support of your Eastern European allies, unless you want to see your population suffer.”
Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows the use of weapons of mass destruction if the country faces a threat to its existence. This is particularly designed to test the resolve of the US, with any attempt to recapture Nato territory met with possible nuclear escalation.
“We talk about alliances but who knows what the US course will be soon and their priorities,” Justin Crump, chief executive of the strategic intelligence company Sibylline, said. “They are far from certain allies given domestic issues and ‘America First’.”
But he cautioned: “All this said Russia hasn’t dared strike at Nato resolve and right now is basically screwed so can’t afford really to rattle our cage and invite reprisal – in fact this is strategically counter productive.”
The gap has thus become known to Western military planners as Nato’s “Achilles heel” or, simply, the most dangerous place in the world