Rutte was asked if Russia, with the force of 15,000 soldiers, will decide to block the so-called Suwałki Isthmus, NATO is able to react quickly.
What words did the head of NATO say towards Russia?
What did Rutte say about the Suwałki Isthmus?
What forces would block the Suwałki Isthmus?
What were the effects of the simulation of the invasion of Marijampolė?
– Definitely yes. (…) I can assure you that NATO itself regularly exercises various scenarios, using all relevant intelligence information. (…) I also assure you that we are well prepared to respond to any threat to the Alliance – so that no one thinks they can attack us, because our response will be devastating, he said.
– We are a defensive alliance, our reaction will be deadly if they try to attack us – he concluded.
The Suwałki Isthmus – why is it so important?
The Suwałki Isthmus is a narrow strip of Polish territory around Suwałki and Augustów, connecting Poland with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. At the same time, it separates the Königsberg Oblast, which belongs to Russia, from Belarus.
The Wall Street Journal reported last Wednesday on the war game, which involved 16 former senior German and NATO officials, as well as parliamentarians and security experts. It was organized jointly by the daily “Die Welt” and the Bundeswehr University in Hamburg. This is how the result of this war game was presented to PAP by its Polish participant, Bartłomiej Kot from the Aspen Institute Central Europe: Within a few days, the Russians, with small forces, take over the strategic bridgehead in Lithuania, and NATO reacts with decision-making paralysis.
According to the scenario adopted in the game, in October this year Russia takes Lithuanian Marijampole, a city of 35,000 inhabitants on the Suwałki Isthmus. He is doing this under the pretext of an alleged humanitarian crisis in the Königsberg Oblast, his enclave bordering Poland and Lithuania.
Mariampol is a strategic place, located at the intersection of important highways for Europe: to the southwest runs Via Baltica, a road leading to Poland, and to the west runs the road between Belarus and Kaliningrad. Under the 2002 transit agreement between Russia, the EU and Lithuania, the latter is open to Russian transport.
According to Kot, apart from Poland, none of the players tried to contest the “Russian starting position” and all of them accepted the establishment of a humanitarian corridor on the territory of Lithuania, also agreeing to the lack of access to this corridor and the closing of the airspace over it for everyone except Russia.
Also according to “WSJ”, the simulated invasion of Marijampolė under the pretext of the humanitarian crisis in Königsberg paralyzed the decision-making process of NATO allies.
