By Kautilya The Contemplator, Substack, 5/20/26

The Limits of Symbolic Deterrence

For the Kremlin, there is an increasingly uncomfortable possibility that the deterrence architecture inherited from the Cold War may no longer function against the West. The structure of confrontation itself has fundamentally changed. NATO increasingly operates through distributed gray-zone escalation involving intelligence sharing, satellite targeting assistance and long-range strike enablement conducted through Ukrainian platforms. These mechanisms are deliberately designed to remain beneath the threshold of direct NATO-Russia war.

Some of the developments that have already occurred during this more than four-year conflict would have been considered almost unthinkable during the Cold War and even up until five years ago. Long-range NATO-enabled drone strikes carried out through Ukraine against Russia’s Armavir and Orsk strategic early-warning nuclear radar stations in April-May 2024, the Western-supported Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast in August 2024 and the highly publicized drone attacks against Russia’s strategic bomber fleet in June 2025 represented major breaches of long-standing Russian deterrence warnings.

During the Cold War, attacks connected even indirectly to strategic nuclear infrastructure would have been viewed as carrying immense escalation risks. Yet these actions occurred without direct consequences imposed on the Western states backing Ukraine. From Moscow’s perspective, this may itself represent evidence that Russian deterrent signaling has progressively lost coercive credibility against NATO’s evolving gray-zone strategy.

This growing perception of deterrence erosion is increasingly visible inside Russian strategic discourse itself. One of the clearest examples is Sergei Karaganov, who has openly argued that Moscow’s repeated restraint has encouraged further Western escalation and that Russia must restore fear and deterrence credibility against Europe through more direct forms of coercion. While Karaganov’s views are more extreme than official Kremlin policy, they are significant because they reflect a broader anxiety emerging within Russian strategic circles that deterrence fails when red lines are repeatedly crossed without consequences.

The question increasingly confronting Moscow may therefore is whether symbolic deterrence still imposes meaningful costs on the alliance.

Russian Restraint and the Logic of Containment

Despite extensive Western involvement in the conflict, Moscow has thus far avoided direct attacks on NATO territory. This restraint may reflect a broader strategic calculation that the current structure of the war still favors Russia more than a widened European conflict would.

The Kremlin may likely believe time remains on its side inside the Ukrainian battle space. The war is geographically contained, Russia retains escalation dominance within Ukraine and can continue grinding down Ukrainian manpower and infrastructure without triggering direct confrontation with the full NATO alliance.

At the same time, Moscow almost certainly understands that a strike on NATO territory, no matter how calibrated, could play directly into the hands of the Zelensky regime and the more hardline factions in the West seeking more direct military intervention. Zelensky has increasingly depended politically on the continuation of the war itself, and widening the conflict has long been one of Kiev’s clearest strategic objectives. Direct Russian attacks on alliance territory could therefore alter the war in Kiev’s favor while triggering escalation dynamics that rapidly exceed political control.

Moscow may also calculate that direct strikes on NATO territory would not begin Europe’s militarization, but complete its political consolidation by turning an already accelerating rearmament project into a wartime consensus with far less public resistance. Such attacks could remove remaining hesitation, silence internal dissent and boost the already dismal public opinion approval ratings of leaders across the continent.

For now, Moscow may calculate that ambiguity serves it better than open confrontation. Cyber operations, sabotage, battlefield escalation inside Ukraine and pressure on European infrastructure allow Russia to impose costs while avoiding direct NATO-Russia combat. A wider war would also stretch Russian logistics, air defense systems and force deployments far beyond the Ukrainian theater.

Yet prolonged gray-zone warfare creates pressures of its own. The longer Western-enabled attacks inside Russia continue without direct consequences for NATO states, the greater the pressure on Moscow to restore deterrence credibility while still attempting to keep escalation controlled.

The Return of the Berlin Problem

The historical precedent for this escalation dilemma emerged during the Cold War confrontations surrounding Checkpoint Charlie and divided Berlin. American and Soviet planners understood that even a localized clash between forward-deployed forces could trigger an uncontrollable escalation cycle between nuclear powers.

This fear became especially acute during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Inside the Pentagon, strategists repeatedly war-gamed scenarios in which a limited confrontation spiraled beyond political control. During ExComm discussions, the logic of escalation was captured with chilling clarity:

Robert Kennedy: “What do we do when … he moves into Berlin?”

Robert McNamara: “Well, when we’re talking about taking Berlin, what do we mean exactly? Do they take it with Soviet troops?”

President John F. Kennedy: “That’s what I would see, anyway.”

McNamara: “I think there’s a real possibility of that. We have U.S. troops there. What do they do?”

General Maxwell Taylor: “They fight.”

McNamara: “They fight. I think that’s perfectly clear.”

Kennedy: “And they get overrun.”

McNamara: “Yes, they get overrun, exactly.”

Robert Kennedy: “Then what do we do?”

Taylor: “Go to general war, assuming we have time for it.”

Kennedy: “You mean nuclear exchange?”

Taylor: “Guess you have to.”1

The terror inside these discussions was not merely the prospect of war, but the realization that escalation could acquire its own momentum once direct combat between superpowers began.

The same dilemma was later captured satirically in the British series Yes, Prime Minister, where the logic of “salami tactics” exposed the central problem of deterrence: if an adversary escalates incrementally rather than through all-out attack, at what point does the alliance actually risk nuclear war?

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/3OpsP-gz_00?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

That same dilemma may now be reemerging in a different form.

The Escalation Ladder: From Demonstration to Retaliation

One possibility increasingly discussed within strategic circles is a Russian nuclear detonation for demonstration purposes. Rather than immediately attacking NATO territory, Moscow could attempt to restore deterrence credibility through a dramatic act of coercive signaling short of battlefield nuclear use. Professor John Mearsheimer has repeatedly suggested that Russia could eventually resort to a demonstration detonation in order to restore fear and deterrence credibility against the West.

Moscow could theoretically detonate a tactical nuclear weapon at a remote site such as Novaya Zemlya near Europe’s northern flank without directly attacking NATO territory. The objective would not be battlefield destruction, but psychological shock: forcing European governments and publics to confront the reality that nuclear escalation may no longer remain safely abstract.

Such a demonstration might create an immediate crisis inside NATO. Some states, notably the Eastern Europeans and the Baltics, would likely demand stronger military escalation and reinforcement, while others in Western Europe may push urgently for de-escalation out of fear that the next threshold could involve actual battlefield nuclear use. A demonstration detonation would not destroy NATO militarily, but it could fracture the alliance politically by forcing it to answer a question long kept theoretical: how does one respond to nuclear use intended not for warfighting, but coercive signaling?

If such a demonstration failed to alter NATO behavior, pressure could emerge inside Moscow for more direct forms of retaliation. Imagine a hypothetical scenario in which Russia conducts a precision strike against a military site in Poland or the Baltic states used for operational support to Ukrainian attacks inside Russia. The target is not American forces, but a French, German or British deployment hub. Moscow frames the strike not as an attack on NATO itself, but as retaliation against states directly participating in hostilities against Russia.

Such a strike would represent a major escalation. Yet its real significance would lie in the political dilemma that follows: would the United States truly risk direct war with Russia over the destruction of a European military base in the Baltics? The answer is less obvious than public NATO rhetoric suggests.

Washington today faces mounting strategic overstretch. The United States remains heavily engaged in the Middle East while simultaneously preparing for long-term competition with China in the Indo-Pacific. A direct war with Russia would consume enormous resources while creating escalation dynamics that could rapidly exceed political control.

Yet failing to respond could be equally catastrophic. If Washington responded only symbolically, or attempted to avoid escalation altogether, the consequences for NATO could become historically transformative. Article 5 would suddenly appear conditional rather than absolute. European governments would begin reassessing whether the American nuclear umbrella is genuinely automatic or ultimately discretionary. Moscow, meanwhile, might conclude that calibrated retaliation works precisely because NATO fears direct war more than Russia fears controlled escalation.

This is precisely the escalation dilemma that haunted Cold War planners during Berlin.

India and the Normalization of Threshold Crossing

Yet the assumption that nuclear deterrence permanently prevents calibrated retaliation has already been challenged elsewhere. An important modern precedent emerged in the long confrontation between India and Pakistan. For decades, Pakistan relied on nuclear deterrence to wage a low-intensity proxy war against India in Kashmir under the assumption that New Delhi would avoid escalation for fear of nuclear conflict. This created what Indian strategists described as the “stability-instability paradox”: nuclear stability enabling persistent proxy warfare beneath the nuclear threshold.

For years, this strategy constrained the Indian response. That calculus gradually changed under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After the Uri attack in 2016, India crossed the first threshold through Special Forces raids on terrorist launchpads across the Line of Control. Following the Pulwama attack in 2019, India crossed a second threshold by conducting precision air strikes in retaliation against terror camps on the other side.

The largest escalation followed the 2025 Pahalgam terror attacks against civilians and India’s retaliation through Operation Sindoor. Unlike the earlier episodes, the crisis evolved into the largest engagement ever between the Indian and Pakistani air forces. India ultimately degraded Pakistan’s air defense network and carried out strikes on major Pakistani air bases before Islamabad sought a ceasefire.2

In all three cases, India’s retaliation remained calibrated and limited. Yet the broader significance was the gradual normalization of increasingly overt retaliation beneath the nuclear threshold: first cross-border raids, then precision strikes and finally sustained conventional escalation.

This precedent matters because Russia may eventually reach a similar conclusion regarding NATO’s gray-zone war structure. If Western-enabled attacks inside Russia continue expanding without consequences for NATO states, Moscow may increasingly conclude that calibrated retaliation carries lower strategic costs than indefinite restraint.

The Danger Beyond the Gray Zone

The central danger emerging in Europe is not simply escalation itself, but the gradual erosion of deterrence credibility under conditions of prolonged gray-zone war.

History suggests that states confronting persistent proxy or indirect attacks eventually begin reconsidering thresholds once thought too dangerous to cross. India progressively normalized retaliation beneath the nuclear threshold against Pakistan. Iran similarly demonstrated how prolonged confrontation can gradually erode the credibility of an American security umbrella once an adversary becomes willing to impose direct costs.

Russia may eventually reach a similar conclusion if Western-enabled attacks deep inside Russian territory continue expanding without direct consequences for NATO states. Scenarios such as a demonstrated nuclear detonation or limited retaliation against NATO infrastructure would likely emerge from an attempt to restore deterrence before escalation spirals further.

This, however, is precisely what makes the situation so dangerous. Measures intended to reinforce deterrence can themselves become the next rung on the escalation ladder. The longer gray-zone warfare persists without a stable strategic equilibrium, the greater the possibility that Russia concludes symbolic warnings are no longer sufficient and that deterrence must instead be demonstrated through action.

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International Crisis Group, 5/19/26

Why is Kaliningrad important?

Roughly half the size of Belgium and home to about a million people, Kaliningrad is Russia’s westernmost territory. Bordering Poland and Lithuania, and located 360km from the Russian mainland but connected to it by sea, Kaliningrad is what is known as a semi-exclave. It is also close to Russian ally Belarus, which sits on the other side of the Suwalki Gap, a roughly 65km stretch of land bisected by the Polish-Lithuanian border. With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine ensuring that NATO members view Moscow with bristling enmity, and vice versa, the geographical positions of Kaliningrad and the Suwalki Gap present challenges for regional security.

Until the end of World War II, the Kaliningrad region, whose capital was then known as Königsberg, was part of Germany. In 1945, the Allies agreed at the Potsdam Conference that the Soviet Union would retain this territory, which it had occupied during the war. It then became part of the Russian Soviet Republic under its current name. During the Cold War, Kaliningrad was a heavily militarised Soviet outpost on the Baltic Sea, whose littoral states, along with the Soviet Union, were Warsaw Pact members Poland and the German Democratic Republic; NATO members Denmark and the Federal Republic of Germany; and Finland and Sweden, which were then neutral. Since the Cold War ended, however, several waves of accession to NATO have left the sea all but encircled by alliance members, the only exceptions being Kaliningrad’s coastline and the Russian mainland shore between Estonia and Finland.

As a result, Russia’s means of access to Kaliningrad are tortuous. Overland transit between the territory and the Russian mainland depends on railways and roads passing through Lithuania as well as either Latvia or Belarus. Maritime routes across the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea are nearly 900km long, and travel by air must now avoid NATO airspace. The Suwalki Gap, meanwhile, is the only land link between the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – and the rest of the EU and NATO. Despite its seemingly precarious links to the Russian mainland, Kaliningrad remains a key military stronghold and logistical hub for the country. Home to Russia’s only ice-free port on the Baltic, it hosts the main base and command centre of the Russian Baltic Fleet. The ships and warplanes based in the region safeguard Russian trade corridors in the Baltic Sea, which, alongside the Black Sea, are the main lanes for exporting oil and gas.

NATO members see Russia’s military assets in Kaliningrad, similar to other Russian bases close to member states’ territories, as a real and persistent threat, while the fact that the Suwalki Gap is the only land route for reinforcing the Baltic States in the event of an armed conflict makes it critical to alliance defence. It is difficult to imagine how war between Russia and NATO would not somehow involve these territories and their environs.

What is Russia’s military posture in Kaliningrad?

Russia maintains a broad mix of offensive and defensive capabilities in Kaliningrad, including substantial long-range strike systems. In 2018, Russia permanently deployed an Iskander-M missile brigade with around twelve launchers in the area. The region also hosts Kh-35 and Oniks anti-ship missiles, with ranges of up to about 300km in their upgraded versions. In 2022, Russia stationed three MiG-31 aircraft capable of carrying Kinzhal hypersonic missiles in Kaliningrad. Together, the Iskander (up to 1,000km range) and Kinzhal (up to 2,000km) place targets across northern and central Europe within reach. Both are nuclear-capable (Russia has nuclear storage facilities in Kaliningrad but says it has no nuclear weapons deployed there). 

On the defensive side, Russia has emplaced Pantsir-S1 and S-400 air defence systems in Kaliningrad. While the first has only a short range, the second can intercept targets as far away as 400km. Russia has also put a Voronezh-DM early warning radar installation in Pionersk, on the region’s coast, as part of its ballistic missile launch detection system. It plans to add a new 29B6 “Container” over-the-horizon radar system, with a range of up to 3,000km. Additional assets, including signals intelligence facilities and research vessels, support reconnaissance in the Baltic Sea.

Despite this impressive array of weaponry, Russia’s garrison in Kaliningrad, which stood at some 20,000 personnel at the start of 2022, has shrunk since the all-out war in Ukraine began. According to a European official, the number of Russian ground troops in the region has declined by 80 per cent, though the air force and naval contingents have remained more or less intact. As in the rest of Russia, the redeployment of forces to the front in Ukraine has left military bases and heavy equipment depots below strength or partially empty. Moscow dispatched units of the 11th Army Corps, responsible for defending Kaliningrad, to Ukraine in 2022. It transferred three of the Baltic Fleet’s major landing ships to Sevastopol on the Black Sea before the invasion. It may also have moved some of its modern S-400 air defence systems from Kaliningrad to Ukraine. 

Moscow says it intends to reverse these trends, but it has yet to do so. In 2024, Russia announced it was bringing back the Leningrad Military District, which was previously merged with another and includes Kaliningrad, to strengthen its ability to deter perceived threats deriving from Finland’s accession to NATO. But it has completed only the first phase of recruitment for the district, despite plans to finish the process by the end of 2025, and it has sent no fresh troops to the semi-exclave.

What is NATO’s military posture in the area?

NATO is gradually bolstering its forces in the region as part of its new defence strategy. In 2022, the alliance decided to scale up the four eastern-flank battlegroups deployed in 2017, including those in Poland and Lithuania, to brigade size, bringing the total number of NATO ground troops in the Baltic region to around 22,000 and strengthening the alliance’s presence on both the Polish and Lithuanian sides of the Suwalki Gap. In Poland, the U.S. leads the multinational battlegroup and maintains about 10,000 troops on a rotational basis. In Lithuania, the German-led battlegroup was integrated into Germany’s new 45th Armoured Brigade, which had reached about 1,800 personnel by February and is expected to grow to around 4,800. But the three Baltic states’ own national forces are the backbone of NATO’s posture in the region. Together, they could field about 136,000 troops with rapid mobilisation, while Poland could add around 550,000, far exceeding Russia’s strength in the area. Poland and the Baltic states are also investing in air defence, naval and coastal defence capabilities, and precision-guided weapons, including anti-ship missiles.

NATO’s efforts to beef up its forces mean more equipment, ships and aircraft, though, as with personnel, those from other countries are predominantly rotated through the region, not permanently based there. The alliance has expanded its exercise program and reinforced air and missile defence with temporary deployments of Patriot, NASAMS, SAMP/T and Sky Sabre systems. In 2024, NATO conducted Steadfast Defender 2024, its largest exercise in decades, involving around 90,000 personnel. In January 2025, it launched the Baltic Sentry mission to enhance surveillance and protect critical infrastructure under the Baltic Sea. Baltic Air Policing continues to safeguard regional airspace, while NATO’s Standing Naval Forces maintain a presence at sea. 

New plans have been put in place for eventual use of these forces. In 2022, Lithuania and Poland jointly developed a plan for defending the Suwałki Gap, calling for Polish forces to help shield Lithuania from Russian attack, irrespective of where it comes from. The Baltic Defence Line project, launched by Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in 2024, seeks to build a network of defensive structures along the borders with Russia (including with Kaliningrad) and Belarus. States in the region have also strengthened their capacity to defend the Suwałki Gap, where logistics are complicated by dense forests, marshes and poor transport infrastructure (there are only two roads and a single railway). Lithuania has decided to build a new military training area in the Suwałki Gap near the town of Kapčiamiestis and plans to upgrade the Vilnius-Augustów road, which runs through the area, with European Union funding. The EU and states in the neighbourhood also aim to connect the three Baltic nations to one another and to Poland by high-speed rail sometime after 2030, providing better civilian service while also enabling faster deployment of troops and equipment should conflict break out.

To be sure, force posture and readiness have not yet reached the new targets for regional defence agreed to in 2025. A European diplomat told Crisis Group that European NATO members would need several years to build up the capacity to repel a conventional attack by Russia. Furthermore, in light of rapidly shifting U.S. policy, NATO countries in Europe are preparing for a range of conflict scenarios that envisage delayed or limited U.S. support. These blueprints, as well as NATO’s regional defence plans, remain classified.

What role does Russia see for Kaliningrad and the Suwalki Gap in a possible war with NATO?

Russia regards Kaliningrad as both a vulnerability and a strategic military asset. Its physical separation from mainland Russia makes it the most exposed point in the country’s defence. Some Russian analysts compare it to Cold War-era West Berlin – hard to reinforce, easily isolated by a partial or full NATO blockade, and at risk of being swiftly overrun by a land invasion. 

In a hypothetical war with the alliance, Russia expects that NATO would attempt to seize control of Kaliningrad, maybe combining a ground offensive from Poland and the Baltic states with airpower and long-range precision weapons. Moscow believes NATO would also seek to block maritime access to the region and isolate the Baltic Fleet from its other base in Kronstadt, on an island just west of St. Petersburg. Russian analysts speculate that NATO might seize Russian islands in the Gulf of Finland, mine key maritime routes and disrupt Russian shipping with anti-ship missiles launched from Finland and Estonia. NATO could also strike Kaliningrad with long-range missiles from the Swedish island of Gotland and the Norwegian Sea. To regain control of Kaliningrad, Russian experts suggest that Moscow’s armed forces would have to invade and occupy NATO territory, at least temporarily. They expect that the Kremlin would need to move troops through Belarus to take the Suwalki Gap. Other experts, however, argue that instead of aiming for the Gap, Russian forces might seek to push through Latvia and Lithuania farther north.

Moscow has indicated that it interprets NATO activity in the region as preparation for a move to capture Kaliningrad. It accuses the alliance of building a “multinational group focused on offensive actions” and rehearsing attacks on Kaliningrad and Belarus during exercises. A number of Russian experts view infrastructure upgrades in the Suwalki Gap and the Baltic states as further evidence of these intentions. Moscow is also waiting to see whether NATO shifts from rotations of allied forces to permanent deployments in the Baltic Sea region, as well as how the alliance will incorporate military infrastructure in Sweden and Finland.

According to Russian experts, Moscow wants to be sure that if clashes begin, it will have enough forces in Kaliningrad to hold out until reinforcements arrive. It expects that its layered air defence and long-range precision strike systems will be able to deny NATO air superiority and threaten significant damage. In what it presents as a combined defence and deterrence strategy, Moscow would rely on threats of limited long-range strikes on targets in Europe, including military bases and major capitals, to discourage NATO from attempting to seize the region.

Backing up whatever deterrence is provided by its conventional capabilities is Moscow’s ability to threaten nuclear escalation. Russian officials warn that they would respond with “all available means” in the event of an attack on Russian territory, including, explicitly, Kaliningrad (lest anyone think its non-contiguous geography somehow makes the region any less Russian). 

At the same time, Kaliningrad’s proximity to Central and Northern Europe offers the Russian military a number of advantages, enabling Moscow to signal its readiness to respond forcefully to what it perceives as threatening moves, such as U.S. missile defence installations or troop stationing in Eastern Europe. A former Russian official told Crisis Group that if NATO builds up capacity in Poland and Romania, Russia might flood Kaliningrad with weapons.

In an actual conflict, or even a crisis short of conflict, Kaliningrad’s combination of strategic importance and vulnerability would create a dilemma for Moscow and its military planners. To defend the region from the threat of attack, the Kremlin would need to invest heavily in it, curbing the Russian military’s ability to operate elsewhere. On the other hand, Moscow might well worry that failing to allocate those resources would project weakness, inviting NATO to push into the region and increasing the risk of full-scale conflict. The right balance between committing sufficient resources to defend Kaliningrad and exposing the region to external pressure by demonstrating its weakness would be hard for Moscow to gauge. Russia also understands that if it were to attack NATO first (not necessarily in the Baltic region), it would risk the isolation and maybe even the loss of Kaliningrad. Indeed, a European official told Crisis Group that were Russia to attack a NATO member state, the risk of nuclear use would not deter the alliance from attempting to seize the region (or, presumably, otherwise strike back at Russia). 

How do NATO member states see the role of Kaliningrad and the Suwalki Gap in a possible war with Russia?

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, officials representing NATO member states have been increasingly open about their belief that a conventional war between the alliance and Moscow is a real possibility. But whereas Moscow worries about Kaliningrad, NATO’s planning has focused on defending the Suwalki Gap as a critical vulnerability on the alliance’s eastern flank.

Many NATO member state military planners believe that in the event of a conventional conflict, Russia would seek to take control of the Suwalki Gap early on, with the goal of attacking the Baltic countries from its mainland territory and via Belarus. By blocking NATO access to the only overland link between Central Europe and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Russian forces would prevent the alliance from sending reinforcements by land. Some scenarios also envisage Russia attempting to establish a land corridor to Kaliningrad, as it did with its offensive in southern Ukraine aimed at securing access to Crimea.

NATO believes that Russia rehearses possible war with the alliance in its Zapad exercises with Belarus, held every four years since 1999. These exercises involve weapons systems capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and at times they may have included scenarios of limited nuclear escalation using tactical nuclear arms. A European official told Crisis Group that during the 2025 exercises Russia practised long-range strikes on NATO naval forces in the Baltic, suggesting that in an invasion of the Baltic states, Moscow might first seek to neutralise its adversary’s fleet.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 further convinced NATO leaders, and particularly those in the Baltics, that earlier plans to deter Russian aggression by warning that it would trigger a war with the entire alliance were inadequate. Instead, NATO adopted a forward defence strategy aimed at preventing Russia from seizing its members’ territory. In 2022, then Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas summarised this new approach by stating that NATO would “defend every square centimetre of NATO territory from the very first minutes of an attack” – a sentiment echoed in several other NATO capitals.

That said, Russia’s force posture in Kaliningrad poses challenges for such a strategy. Russia’s Baltic Fleet, together with coastal defence, ballistic and cruise missiles, air defence, aviation assets and ground forces, could deny NATO naval access to the Baltic Sea in a war, disrupt air operations and block the Suwalki Gap. Faced with these threats, Western military analysts note that one of the first steps the alliance would need to take after a Russian attack in the Baltic Sea region would be to destroy Russian capabilities in Kaliningrad. By definition, the alliance would have to strike Russian territory, which could, among other things, trigger a Russian nuclear response, as NATO planners recognise.

NATO is also concerned that Russia could station non-strategic nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, which would give it the capacity for more rapid nuclear strikes on a wider range of targets in Central and Northern Europe. Some officials may believe it has already done so, though no available government assessment makes this claim. Russian officials have indeed floated the possibility of nuclear deployments to the semi-exclave in response to changes in NATO’s posture, including the accession of Finland and Sweden. Russian experts, meanwhile, suggest that major shifts in NATO’s long-range strike capabilities, such as the deployment of U.S. intermediate-range missiles in Europe, might also trigger such a response by Moscow.

What does Russia think could set off war in this region?

Since the beginning of full-scale war in Ukraine, Russia has become increasingly concerned, justifiably or not, about a possible NATO land and sea blockade of the semi-exclave. It now views this scenario as more likely, at least as a first step, than a direct military assault. The region depends on energy – natural gas, petroleum and coal – from mainland Russia, and its thermal power plants would last only a few months under a full blockade. Moscow increasingly believes – again, whether justifiably or not – that European NATO allies, working with the U.S., might even decide to impose a blockade in the hope of coercing Russian concessions on Ukraine. It also views NATO’s Baltic Sentry mission as a rehearsal for a blockade.

Russia would almost certainly treat the imposition of a blockade as an act of war. Without UN Security Council approval or a credible self-defence justification, such a blockade would be widely seen as a use of force prohibited by the UN Charter. Putin warned in 2025 that a naval blockade would trigger “unprecedented escalation” and could lead to large-scale conflict. Moscow envisages that its first response in such a scenario would be naval. But nuclear threats could play a role: Russia’s doctrine calls on its nuclear forces to deter attempts to isolate parts of the country and restrict access to vital transport routes, implying that Moscow would remind adversaries of the escalation risks of a blockade (not that it intends to respond to one with a nuclear attack). Indeed, at least one Russian member of parliament is on record warning of these potential risks.

Russia also worries about the isolation of Kaliningrad short of a blockade, perhaps as part of the EU sanctions regime. After the EU’s sixth sanctions package in June 2022, Lithuania restricted transit of sanctioned goods to Kaliningrad, affecting around 50 per cent of road and rail freight into the region. Though the EU restored rail links within a month (while maintaining restrictions on road transport), Moscow saw this episode as a violation of existing Russia-EU agreements on transit to Kaliningrad and a precedent for further similar actions. Russia also takes seriously calls in some European countries to block Russian oil shipments through the Baltic Sea, though that measure would violate the principle of freedom of navigation. These moves would fall short of acts of war, but they could easily be seen by Moscow as steps toward them. Some Russian experts go even further, arguing that the seizure of shadow fleet tankers could initiate a larger NATO offensive against Kaliningrad.

What do NATO members think could trigger war in the region?

Many NATO officials believe that a Russian attack on the Suwalki Gap and the Baltic states could become more likely once the war in Ukraine ends and Russia is able to rebuild its military. An official from a NATO member state told Crisis Group that Russia’s purpose may be to weaken NATO by seizing a small parcel of territory in the expectation that the alliance would not respond decisively. Some allies believe this scenario would be even more plausible if Russia perceives that U.S. commitment to its allies is waning. 

More broadly, NATO and the EU are alarmed by the avowed dimensions of Russia’s prospective military build-up once the war in Ukraine is over, including grandiose plans for a force of 2.4 million personnel. Western analysts also point to increased Russian production of artillery ammunition, long-range strike systems, including Iskander-M missiles, drones, armoured vehicles and air defences, as well as its ability to regenerate larger ground formations. Estimates of how long this build-up might take range from one to ten years, depending on developments in the Ukraine war, the scale of Russian mobilisation and the pace of defence-industrial production. Some argue that Russia’s current output of artillery shells and long-range weapons is already enough both to sustain the war in Ukraine and open new battlefronts. Others disagree. A NATO member state official told Crisis Group that Russia is not prepared for war in the Baltic Sea region in the near term, since it has devoted most of its military capabilities to Ukraine.

If Russia builds the army it intends, NATO leaders fear that members may not be adequately prepared for a large-scale conventional war. At the same time, alliance members have grown more confident that they can repel Russian aggression in the Baltic region. In July 2025, General Christopher Donahue, commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, said NATO could take down Russia’s long-range missile capabilities and air defences around Kaliningrad from the ground “faster than we’ve ever been able to do”. The following February, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that if Russia blocked the Suwalki Gap, NATO’s response would be “devastating”. If a NATO member were attacked, Polish military officials say, the alliance could shift to the offensive, widening the Suwalki Gap by moving into the Kaliningrad region. 

How dangerous is this standoff around Kaliningrad?

Russia and NATO member states worry about different things in the Baltic Sea, but because they pay little attention to the other side’s concerns and distrust its intentions, they risk exacerbating the dangers.

Moscow worries that NATO will impose a blockade of Kaliningrad that, in turn, would compel it to threaten attacks on NATO member states, and perhaps even nuclear use, to restore its access to the region. The expectation in Moscow is that the alliance’s next escalatory step would involve massive attacks on Kaliningrad and, eventually, mainland Russia, leaving the Kremlin with no choice but to deploy nuclear weapons. 

NATO members see few threats in the near term, but they worry that eventually Moscow might test their wherewithal with an attack on a Baltic NATO member state, perhaps using threats of nuclear escalation to prevent a response. That step could weaken the alliance, enabling Moscow to press for other concessions. They also fear that if Russia builds up its conventional forces more quickly than alliance members do, it might achieve military supremacy in the Baltic Sea region or elsewhere in Europe.

In any event, failure by NATO member states to take Russia’s threat perceptions seriously creates dangers. Steps that the alliance sees as rational and intended to increase pressure on Russia, including efforts to deepen economic isolation of the semi-exclave or strengthen military defences to account for future Russian capacity, could be viewed by Moscow as preparation for a blockade of the semi-exclave or even an eventual attack – perhaps with the ambition of striking Russia while it remains relatively weak. 

On the other hand, if Moscow does not take NATO members’ concerns into consideration, its efforts to demonstrate capability and deter aggression could be interpreted as the first stages of fresh military action, prompting the very outcomes that the Kremlin hopes to avoid. Certainly, its tendency to sabre rattle and threaten nuclear escalation– which Moscow may view as deterrence – will be seen in NATO capitals more as belligerence. Particularly in the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, that is how alliance members tend to interpret Russia’s intentions. 

In periods of tension, the tendency to expect aggression from the other side can make accidents and mistakes particularly dangerous. To date, incidents including drone overflights and interactions between aircraft and vessels in the Baltic Sea region and elsewhere have raised hackles, but without edging up levels of conflict, in large part because for all the misunderstandings, both sides take escalation risks very seriously. Incentives in both Moscow and Western capitals to avoid a direct confrontation are still strong. But it is possible to chart scenarios where mismatched or misunderstood threat perceptions set off an escalation. The seizure by a NATO member state of a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker at sea or Ukraine firing missiles through Baltic airspace to strike Russia could trigger a more robust response, particularly if it takes place at a febrile moment in relations. Russia might interpret such steps as paving the way for a blockade of Kaliningrad or entry by NATO members into the war between Russia and Ukraine. Similarly, an escalation could be triggered by an attack by Russian warships on NATO vessels to prevent the detention of a shadow fleet tanker or a Russian attempt to shoot down Ukrainian missiles or drones flying through NATO airspace. 

One way to mitigate risks would be to ensure that channels of communication exist and are used when incidents occur. The communication need not involve all the countries of the region and could instead be carried out bilaterally, including by leveraging existing talks, such as those between the U.S. and Russia, which resumed regular military-level contacts in February. Russia and Norway also maintain a General Staff dialogue on Arctic issues, while several NATO members’ channels to Belarus could also play a role. Parties might also consider discussions within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe framework. Without communication channels, even a minor incident could spiral rapidly into a crisis around Kaliningrad and the Suwalki Gap that neither side intends – and neither could easily control.

YouTube link here.

By Alexey Martynov, RT, 5/16/26

Russia and China are moving, slowly but unmistakably, toward a structural alliance that is reshaping the global balance of power. But the two sides are progressing through this transformation at different speeds. Moscow has largely accepted the logic of deep strategic interdependence. Beijing, by contrast, still behaves as though it can preserve a carefully managed partnership in which China remains the senior partner while minimizing its own obligations.

That model is reaching its limits. For years, the dominant narrative in Western policy circles has been that Russia has become the junior partner in an unequal relationship. Brussels think tanks, Washington analysts and even many Chinese commentators have repeated the same formula: Russia supplies raw materials and China supplies everything else.

Berlin-based MERICS has described the relationship as “fundamentally unbalanced” and Intereconomics called it “symbiotic but deeply asymmetrical.” Other researchers have portrayed the Russia-China-US triangle as one in which Washington still holds the decisive advantage.

Yet this interpretation misses something important. Even while Western analysts obsessively measured asymmetry, many Chinese scholars privately acknowledged that the relationship was being driven less by hierarchy than by geopolitical pressure.

Professor Feng Shaolei of East China Normal University has argued that external circumstances, rather than relative status, have always been the true engine of the partnership. NATO expansion pushed Moscow and Beijing closer together while US tariffs accelerated the process further. Sanctions pressure on Russia gave China discounted resources and gave Russia guaranteed markets as each side increasingly possessed what the other lacked.

The numbers tell the story clearly enough. By the end of 2024, Russia had become China’s largest oil supplier, delivering 108.5 million tonnes. But energy is only one dimension of the relationship. Between January and September 2025, Russian nickel exports to China doubled to $1 billion, copper exports surged 88% to $2 billion, while shipments of aluminum and metal ores jumped by around 50%.

Agriculture has become another strategic pillar as Russia, now the world’s leading wheat exporter, signed a long-term agreement in 2023 to supply China with 70 million tonnes of grain and oilseeds over a twelve-year period.

And unlike Middle Eastern energy routes, Russian pipelines don’t pass through vulnerable maritime chokepoints. That reality became far more important once the geopolitical environment deteriorated.

Washington’s strategy was straightforward: isolate Russia financially while frightening China into limiting cooperation through the threat of secondary sanctions. By late 2023 and early 2024, major Chinese financial institutions including Bank of China and CITIC had sharply reduced direct transactions with Russian entities after new US restrictions were announced.

The pressure had some effect. Chinese state energy companies cut purchases temporarily after sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil in early 2025. Shandong Port Group banned sanctioned vessels from entering its terminals. Western analysts celebrated what they described as growing Chinese caution.

But the strategy contained a fundamental weakness. Secondary sanctions work only when alternatives exist and once instability threatened key global energy routes, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, Russia’s role changed dramatically. Roughly a third of global seaborne oil trade passes through Hormuz, while more than half of China’s imported oil comes from the Middle East. In those circumstances, Russian pipelines stopped being merely commercial infrastructure and became a strategic necessity.

Ironically, Washington’s simultaneous pressure on both Moscow and Beijing did more to deepen their cooperation than any summit declaration ever could.

As several Chinese analysts have noted, Russia and China may each be vulnerable separately, but together they possess the capacity to counterbalance American power. For most of the last three years, however, the relationship has remained stuck in a bargaining phase. Publicly, both sides speak of a “partnership without limits.” In practice, the relationship has often been slowed by caution and endless technical complications.

During Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing in September 2025, the two countries signed more than twenty agreements covering energy, aerospace, artificial intelligence, agriculture and industrial technology. The headline figures looked impressive. Analysts estimated the announced value of Russian-Chinese investment projects at more than $200 billion.

Yet many of these projects remain only partially implemented as Chinese businesses continue to calculate the costs of sanctions exposure carefully. Beijing has often preferred opportunistic gains over genuine strategic interdependence. Western researchers openly acknowledge this dynamic, arguing that China has benefited from the departure of Western competitors from Russia while avoiding commitments that would fully bind the two economies together.

The problem, however, is caution, not hostility, this has limits when geography and geopolitics are pushing both countries together.

In 2025, both sides entered a more sober phase. Bilateral trade declined by nearly 7% to $228 billion, the first major drop since the pandemic. The reasons were mostly economic rather than political. Falling oil prices sharply reduced the value of Russian exports despite relatively stable volumes.

Chinese media were unusually frank about the difficulties. Consumer demand in Russia weakened under high interest rates and Chinese car exports collapsed after an overheated boom period. Moscow’s growing import-substitution policies also began limiting opportunities for Chinese manufacturers.

This was the moment both sides stopped romanticizing the partnership and began viewing it more realistically. And realism points toward one unavoidable conclusion.

Russia and China share more than 4,200 kilometers of border. One side possesses enormous energy reserves, agricultural resources, metals, territory and pipeline infrastructure largely immune from naval disruption. The other possesses industrial scale, capital, technology and a market of 1.4 billion people.

Neither can fully achieve its strategic ambitions alone and that is why the relationship continues to deepen despite friction.

When Xi Jinping visited Moscow for Victory Day commemorations in 2025, the two countries signed a joint declaration that went beyond symbolism. The document emphasized expanded settlements in national currencies, deeper investment cooperation and the joint development of the Northern Sea Route and this matters enormously.

The Arctic corridor offers China a long-term alternative to vulnerable maritime routes such as Suez and Hormuz. In a world where each of those chokepoints faces growing instability, the Northern Sea Route is becoming strategic infrastructure rather than an experimental trade project.

Chinese analysts increasingly recognize this reality. Academic discussions inside China now openly acknowledge that rivalry with the United States makes close partnership with Russia less a matter of preference than necessity.

Even many Western observers are beginning to admit the same thing. Studies searching for fractures in the alliance increasingly conclude that the relationship is far more durable than earlier predictions suggested.

This is because the partnership is no longer built merely on diplomatic convenience or temporary economic gains. It is being driven by structural forces: geography, energy security, trade routes, sanctions pressure and the emergence of a more fragmented global order.

Russia and China are joining together because the strategic logic is becoming overwhelming, yet one major obstacle remains.

China still often behaves as though it can enjoy the benefits of strategic partnership without fully committing itself to the burdens that come with it. Moscow has already integrated Beijing deeply into critical sectors ranging from energy to logistics and food security. But many major Chinese investments and technology commitments continue to move cautiously or remain delayed.

At some point, Beijing will have to decide whether it truly views Russia as an equal strategic partner or merely as a useful resource base operating on China’s periphery.

That question now defines the future of the partnership and the answer will shape the architecture of Eurasia for decades to come.

By Matt Bivens, Substack, 6/2/26

Two weeks ago, a series of repeated Ukrainian drone attacks blasted apart a Russian vocational school’s dormitory and campus. The bombs killed 21 students and injured more than 60 others.

The attacks occurred before 4 a.m. on May 21, killing many students in their sleep. Russian media reported that the surviving students leapt from the windows or ran from the burning building in their pajamas.

The 21 students who died that morning were aged 14 to 18. They had been studying to become elementary school teachers. All but three were young women.

The 18 girls and 3 boys killed by Ukrainian drone strikes on their teachers college, as published across Russian media.

The attack happened in the village of Starobilsk (the Ukrainian spelling) or Starobelsk (the Russian spelling), which is in Luhansk, a Russia-controlled territory that both Ukraine and Russia claim.

The U.S. ‘Kill Chain’ in Russia

How deep was the U.S. involvement in the killing of these 21 Russian teenagers?

All this spring, Ukrainian drones have been attacking Moscow, St. Petersburg and other points deep inside Russia. It’s little reported in the news here, even though such strikes are often guided by the C.I.A. or other American-led security services, and even though the Kremlin has warned that such strikes could mean America and Russia are directly at war with each other. It’s sort of incredible no one cares about this.

Seven months ago, the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed U.S. officials, reported that America “will provide Ukraine with intelligence for long-range missile strikes … deep inside Russian territory.”

“While the U.S. has long assisted Kyiv’s drone and missile attacks, the intelligence sharing means Ukraine will be better able to hit refineries, pipelines, power stations and other infrastructure far from its borders,” the Journal reported then.

Other infrastructure including Moscow apartment buildings and Donbas teachers colleges?

The report by the Journal followed an earlier investigation last year by The New York Times that asserted America “was woven into the war far more intimately and broadly than previously understood.” The Times said American intelligence services “both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field.”

The Times recounted how an unnamed European intelligence chief recalled being taken aback to learn how deeply enmeshed his N.A.T.O. counterparts had become in Ukrainian operations. “They are part of the kill chain now,” he said.

The Russians had long been making such accusations. Nearly two years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that threats to launch missile or drone attacks deep into Russia — back then, just 20 short months ago, that was still all just crazy talk — would be a sea change in the nature of the war. Putin said this would require the West not just to provide the weapons; and not just to guide them to their target via U.S. / NATO satellites; but to even have U.S. / NATO military personnel select and input the target in the first place.

“The Ukrainian army is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites, which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or U.S. satellites — in general, NATO satellites,” Putin said then.

“The second point — perhaps the most important, the key point even — is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this.”

Putin went on to warn that such strikes against Russia — strikes conceived and guided to target in cooperation with American intelligence services — would mean the United States had opted for “direct involvement” in the war, and thus would be “at war with Russia.”

No one came out to contradict this, and of course we went ahead and did it anyway. Today, when the Russians are warning all Westerners to get out of Kyiv before they smash it, the implication is that they are telling U.S. or NATO intelligence officers — the ones presumably in Ukraine to program and guide weapons to their targets — to get out or be killed.

So, again: Were U.S. or NATO intelligence agents part of the “kill chain” last month that took the lives of 21 sleeping Russian teenagers?

We don’t know. It’s possible, even probable, that the teachers college at Starob*lsk was left click, right click, left click’ed into oblivion via some nightmarish Palantir-provided, AI-guided U.S. death tech. Just as likely happened to another school infamously destroyed by mindless U.S. war-making, Iran’s Minab elementary school, vaporized 4 months ago along with more than 100 little kids.

One assumes the teachers college was targeted accidentally. But it’s even possible it was targeted directly, out of some evil plot to rile up the Russians and to provoke them to smash Kyiv — as they have already begun to do, including overnight and into this morning.

Why would Ukraine +/- its C.I.A. handlers intentionally target a bunch of teenagers at a teaching college? Perhaps to breathe new life into a smoldering war in danger of petering out, and to summon American and European voters back into the fight. (Remember, this has never been about helping ordinary Ukrainian people, who have been sacrificed for more than a decade now to the war-making agendas of others.)

That might sound crazy.

But is it? Consider that the odious Ukrainian organization Mirotvorets (Peacemaker), which for years now has winkingly claimed to be affiliated with the C.I.A. and publishes what amount to kill lists, identifies nine top faculty of the Starob*lsk teachers college as traitors to be eliminated. For example, here is the site’s page devoted to Natalya Tsyganok, a “criminal” who is an assistant director of the college:

The text says (in part): “Traitor to the Homeland. Accomplice of the Russian-fascist invaders and terrorists. … [Guilty of] implementation of educational standards, including the chauvinistic ideologies of the aggressor state, at educational institutions in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. Dissemination of Russian propaganda among minors. Psychological abuse, moral corruption, and the fascist indoctrination of Ukrainian children.”

I learned that from reading Russia’s top business newspaper, Vedomosti, a newspaper I long ago helped launch (as a three-way joint venture between the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and The Moscow Times, which I then edited).

The banner atop the Mirotvorets webpage lists itself as headquartered in Langley, Virginia, a barely-veiled claim that it is C.I.A.-endorsed.

C.I.A. has never disavowed Mirotvorets — even though this weird organization has published lists of enemies to be eliminated that included American journalists and scholars, and then has gleefully crossed off in red those critics who end up “liquidated” (murdered).

So, in a world spinning out of control, we have a self-proclaimed Ukrainian-C.I.A. joint venture that publishes kill lists highlight the faculty of an obscure teachers college — which then gets blown to hell, so that 14- and 15-year-old girls die in terror in their beds — which then becomes the official (yet rarely mentioned here) justification for angry Russians to escalate dramatically this morning and to rain death down on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, smashing apartment blocks, killing 13 so far, burying innocents (including some children) in the rubble …

To be continued, unfortunately.