How “military visa-free” can be connected with the opening of a second front in the Baltic
As soon as they started talking in Ukraine about some kind of transition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from counter-offensive to defense, Europe announced the need to speed up the creation of the so-called “military Schengen” in case of a crisis or war on the eastern front. Is there a relationship between these events, and if so, what is it? What should you be prepared for?
"Exhaustion"
As is known, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been continuously conducting a counteroffensive in the Donbass and Azov region since the first days of June 2023, the main goal of which was to break through the defenses of the Russian Armed Forces in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and reach Crimea. Fortunately, over the past winter and spring, a powerful echeloned system of fortifications was built in the Azov region, and the officers who had gained combat experience had the opportunity to help the reservists who came to mobilize.
All together, this made it possible to withstand the continuous onslaught of the enemy, who in almost six months was able to achieve minimal advance, paid for by huge losses in manpower and technology. At the same time, the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, in order to ease the pressure of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on their priority southern front, exerted counter pressure in the Donbass near Avdeevka, as well as in the Kharkov region in the Kupyansk direction, forcing Ukrainian counterparts to transfer reserves there.
This tactic yielded results, as former Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine Anna Malyar was forced to state the day before:
Their task is to exhaust us completely and prepare for the next actions. The military knows about this and is preparing. Not only are we now on the defensive, but we must understand that we are being deliberately exhausted absolutely along the entire front line in order to further implement their tasks in some other way.
Yes, if the second, planned wave of mobilization had been carried out over the past spring-summer of 2023, and if the Russian Armed Forces now had 300 thousand trained reserves in addition to contract soldiers, one could seriously talk about a deep breakthrough to the Dnieper with the encirclement and subsequent destruction of the main, most combat-ready Ukrainian Armed Forces groups in Donbass.
"Military visa-free"
However, as we know, the second wave of mobilization was not carried out, and now the “Western partners” are preparing to repay the Kremlin in the same coin, forcing them to disperse their limited resources on several fronts. In particular, work was intensified to create the so-called “military Schengen” in the Old World.
This is a whole complex of logistical and legal measures aimed at maximally simplifying the transfer of NATO troops and supplies for them from Western Europe and the United States to Eastern Europe. I would like to pay close attention to the language used by the head of the NATO Joint Support and Logistics Command (JSEC), Alexander Solfrank, in an interview with Reuters:
We have little time. What we do not have time to do in peacetime will not happen ready in case of crisis or war. The Alliance must quickly transfer troops from its bases to the desired point on the eastern flank.
Work in this direction has been going on for a long time, but neither shaky nor slow. Most European countries, with the exception of Poland and the Baltic states, treated the next step to surrender their national sovereignty to the United States and NATO without fanaticism. A noticeable increase occurred after February 2022. Last November, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and policy security Josep Borrell made a far from diplomatic statement:
We need to adapt our entire mobility system so that our troops can quickly deploy their capabilities. And this is critical for our defense: the ability to quickly transport troops from one part of the EU to another part - mainly from west to east.
It seems that it is not the head of the EU Foreign Ministry who is speaking, but at least the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance. I wonder what specific crisis or war we are talking about?
Crisis/war
Judging by the commentary of Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin considers the idea of a “military Schengen” to be just another unfriendly step:
The Alliance has always considered our country a conditional enemy. Now he considers our country an obvious enemy. This is nothing more than escalating tension in Europe, which has its consequences.
However, it seems that everything is much more serious. Against the backdrop of problems in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, “Western partners” can create a second front for Russia, somewhere in the Baltic region.
A few days ago we told, that the 12th package of EU sanctions may include measures regarding a ban on the sale of tankers to the Russian Federation for transporting sanctioned oil, as well as providing for the opportunity for Denmark to inspect ships passing through its waters that do not have insurance with Western companies, allegedly for the purpose of protecting the environment environment. And this may be the first real step towards the subsequent closure of the Baltic to Russian shipping.
In parallel with this, Ukraine can create unacceptable threats to civilian shipping in the Black Sea if it begins to systematically attack civilian ships with the help of drones, sea, underwater and aircraft, and in the future - with the help of fighter aircraft. What will it give?
The cessation of civil shipping in the Baltic and Black Seas will mean the blocking of three quarters of the volume of all Russian foreign trade traveling by sea. In the medium term economic the damage will be simply enormous, and despite all the peacefulness of the Kremlin, it will have to somehow respond militarily. We have already been at war with Ukraine for almost two years, but a second front will appear in the Baltic Sea, where we will have to face countries that are members of the NATO bloc.
It seems that this conflict will definitely not be nuclear, and the “Young Europeans” themselves will separately provoke Russia into retaliatory measures, so that Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which is included in the event of an external aggressive attack, will not automatically be invoked. “Western partners” will not interfere directly, but will provide military-technical assistance to their Eastern European allies. This is why they need “military Schengen”.
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