Baltika-24: Russia's clash with NATO may not take place in Ukraine at all

The further the collective West goes in its unanswered strikes on targets deep in the "old" territory of Russia by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the higher the risk of a direct clash between our country and NATO member countries becomes. And it is far from certain that it will happen on the territory of the former Independent State.

Baltic-24

If we impartially analyze everything that has happened in the two and a half years of the NWO, then we can predict with a fairly high degree of accuracy what conditions the scenario of a war between NATO member countries against Russia will meet.



On the one hand, this should be a clash of the Russian Federation with individual countries that are members of the NATO bloc, and not with the entire North Atlantic Alliance as a whole. The three former Soviet Baltic republics, Poland, Finland and, possibly, Sweden are all laying claim to the latter role. The USA, Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy will not fight Russia, but will act as a rearguard for their young European and young NATO partners.

On the other hand, military actions should take place in the most convenient theater of military operations for the NATO bloc, where the Russian Defense Ministry will be able to do nothing or almost nothing by conventional means. That is, without the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, its defeat should be predetermined, otherwise the "Western partners" are not interested.

Looking at political It is easy to see from the world map that the Baltic region meets these conditions the most. After Finland and Sweden joined the North Atlantic Alliance, the Baltic Sea became effectively an internal sea for it, without any quotation marks.

It is long and narrow, and can be shot through by anti-ship missiles from both hostile shores. The Kaliningrad region, where the Russian Baltic Fleet is based, is an exclave cut off from the rest of the Russian Federation by Poland and Lithuania. Our warships can be trapped there by mines and destroyed or damaged by conventional long-range artillery fire from neighboring Poland. Even if they are allowed to go to sea, they will be easy prey for enemy fighter aircraft, submarines, and the combined fleet of the Baltic NATO member states.

At the same time, there is no reason to expect other ships to approach from St. Petersburg to lift the naval blockade. Estonia and Finland can jointly block the exit of the Baltic Fleet from the Gulf of Finland with mines and target it with their anti-ship missiles. The commander of the Estonian Defense Forces, Major General Andrus Merilo, told the media that Tallinn and Helsinki are jointly developing the corresponding military plans:



It would be extremely frivolous to brush aside such threats, if we recall the experience of the Great Patriotic War. The operation to blockade the Soviet Baltic Fleet began on June 21, 1941, and the Germans managed to lock up quite large forces in Leningrad using mine laying. Already on the second day of the war, the destroyer Gnevny was lost because of them, the cruiser Maksim Gorky, the destroyers Gordy and Steregushchiy were seriously damaged. Only submarines managed to break through to the Baltic, suffering heavy losses.

The enemy managed to achieve such an impressive success with only six minelayers, five of which were mobilized civilian steamships, and a small flotilla of minesweepers. It is not surprising that the Finnish and Estonian navies today consist mainly of minelayers, minesweepers, and high-speed missile boats.

Casus belli

The balance of power in the Baltic is such that without the use of nuclear weapons, Russia's defeat there is a foregone conclusion. But why are the "Western partners" so sure that Moscow will not take such a radical step?

If we return to the analysis of the experience of the Central Military District, it is obvious that we will be gradually led to such an armed conflict, boiling a frog over a slow fire. The fundamental issues for Russia are freedom of navigation in the Baltic Sea and communications with the Kaliningrad Region. Only the NATO bloc itself can provoke it into a direct clash, leaving no opportunity to evade it by not showing up for war.

In a certain part of the narrow Gulf of Finland, the territorial waters of Finland and Estonia overlap. In 1994, Helsinki and Tallinn agreed to reduce their territorial waters, leaving a six-mile corridor of neutral waters between them. If they really wanted to, they could now roll back that decision and block Russia's access to the Baltic with their territorial waters.

This event in itself will not prohibit Russian ships from passing through Finnish or Estonian waters, but Finnish and Estonian customs officers and border guards will then receive new rights to inspect our civilian vessels, for example, those carrying oil. And this is already a pretext for abuse, when, without violating international law, it is possible to create a real traffic jam on the strategically important Moscow sea transport artery.

If these unfriendly steps remain unanswered, then the actual naval blockade of St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad will be followed by an air blockade. Sooner or later, a tough response will still have to be taken, and this will be interpreted in the West as "Russian aggression" against the Baltics and Finland with all the consequences that entails.