OPINION: Kaliningrad rehearses its strikes — the Russian threat on our doorstep

What Su-24 bombers training over the Baltic actually means

There are things the military does that civilians do not watch. Maneuvers. Exercises. "Operations rehearsals." That is precisely what Russia was doing on June 21, 2026 from the enclave of Kaliningrad, according to Army Recognition: Su-24M bombers and Su-30SM2 fighters rehearsing simulated strike operations toward the Baltic Sea and its neighbors. Poland. Lithuania. Latvia. Estonia. These countries are our allies, members of NATO, members of the European Union.

When an army rehearses strikes in a specific direction, it is because it is preparing to carry them out if the order comes. That is not paranoia: it is the basic reading of what military training means. And here, the message from Kaliningrad is crystal clear to anyone willing to hear it: Russia is keeping its strike capacity against NATO's Eastern Flank operational. Permanently. Demonstratively.

Kaliningrad — permanent threat and permanent provocation

Kaliningrad is one of the most densely militarized concentrations in Europe relative to its surface area. This exclave of roughly 15,000 km² between Poland and Lithuania hosts nuclear-capable Iskander missiles, the Baltic Fleet, S-400 anti-aircraft defense systems, anti-ship missile batteries, and now air forces rehearsing strikes against neighboring Alliance member states. It is a military base disguised as a region, planted at the heart of Europe.

Russia has progressively increased the militarization of Kaliningrad since the annexation of Crimea in 2014. It moved Iskander-M missiles there — officially "temporarily" in 2016, then permanently. It developed electronic warfare capabilities there capable of jamming GPS signals and communications across a wide radius. It is now rehearsing air strikes against its neighbors. At what point do we call it what it is: a direct threat against NATO member states?

I live in Western Europe, thousands of kilometers from Kaliningrad. But there are nights when I wonder what the residents of Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn feel when they see this news. Geographic distance must not become an excuse for political indifference.

Why Putin flexes his muscles

Putin's Russia has elevated shows of force to a political art form. The ostentatious military exercises, overflights of neighboring airspace, training strikes aimed at specific potential targets — all of this is part of a message addressed simultaneously to several audiences. To the populations of the targeted countries: you are vulnerable. To the governments of the targeted countries: do not provoke Moscow. To Western allies: can your defense umbrella truly cover all of this?

This strategy works partially. It creates fear. It divides European public opinion between those who want firmness and those who advocate appeasement. It pushes some governments toward ambiguous postures. That is the intended goal. And as long as NATO does not respond in a clear and deterrent manner, Russia has no reason to stop.

The difference between deterrence and provocation

Some defenders of Russia will say these exercises are "defensive," that Russia has the right to train on its own territory. That is true. But there is a fundamental difference between defensive training and the rehearsal of offensive strike operations aimed precisely at the capitals of countries that are members of a collective defense alliance. Nobody would be fooled if NATO organized simulated bombing exercises against St. Petersburg from the Finnish border. Russia should not be either.

What is happening from Kaliningrad is deliberate, documented, and repeated provocation. Army Recognition of June 21, 2026 offers the most recent evidence. This is not the first time, and it will not be the last — until NATO decides that this permanent demonstration of offensive capacity will no longer be tolerated without a response.

Russian military exercises from Kaliningrad have become so regular that we end up ignoring them. That is exactly the result Moscow seeks: normalizing the threat. We cannot afford this habituation. Every strike rehearsal is a message, and that message says: we are ready if you are not.

Riga alerts allies: drones and missiles are coming

While the Su-24M jets were training from Kaliningrad, Latvia was transmitting a troubling intelligence assessment to its allies. Reported by Fox News on June 22, 2026, this alert indicated that Russia is preparing to conduct hybrid attacks involving drones and missiles against NATO's Eastern Flank. The alert does not specify a timeline — that is the nature of intelligence assessments in grey zone situations — but its very existence, and the decision to make it public, is significant.

Latvia does not alert out of hysteria. It is a serious state, with a capable intelligence service, trained in part by long experience of Soviet and then Russian surveillance. When Riga says something is being prepared, allies should listen with the same attention they give to Washington or London. Geography is sometimes the best intelligence sensor.

Drones, missiles, hybrid warfare: the Baltic cocktail

Drones constitute a particularly well-suited threat for Russian intentions in the Baltic region. They are relatively inexpensive, difficult to intercept en masse, and their use can be attributed to non-state actors, complicating the conventional military response. Russia developed and deployed in Ukraine a considerable strike-by-drone capability, including Iranian Shaheds and domestic models. The same arsenal could be turned toward the Baltics, with potentially devastating effects on critical infrastructure.

The missiles from Kaliningrad represent a threat of a different order. The Iskander-M, with a range of 500 km, can reach Warsaw, Berlin, Stockholm, and all the Baltic capitals. A demonstration strike — just one, on a military site or infrastructure — would be sufficient to create a major political crisis within the Alliance. That is the scenario that NATO military planners dread most.

Russia used Iranian Shahed drones to terrorize Ukrainian cities for more than two years. That same arsenal, or its equivalent, could be aimed at Riga, Tallinn, or Vilnius tomorrow. The question is not whether it is possible — it manifestly is. The question is what NATO intends to do to make it untempting.

Enhanced forward presence: necessary but insufficient

In response to the Ukraine invasion in 2022, NATO reinforced its military presence on the Eastern Flank by activating and augmenting its enhanced forward presence battle groups. British, German, Canadian, French, and American soldiers are now deployed in each of the Baltic states and in Poland. Joint exercises are more frequent. Additional air defense capabilities have been deployed.

But these measures, while improving the situation, fall short of what strategists consider necessary for robust defense. The NATO battle groups in the Baltics number in the thousands. Against a Russian army capable of projecting tens of thousands of troops from Kaliningrad or from Belarus within hours, this is symbolically important but militarily limited. The Gdansk Declaration of June 25, 2026 demands precisely that this equation change at Ankara.

Missile defense systems: the answer to Kaliningrad

The most direct answer to the threat of Kaliningrad's missiles is deploying missile defense systems capable of intercepting the Iskanders before they reach their target. American Patriot systems are already deployed in Poland. Franco-Italian SAMP/T batteries are starting to become available. SHORAD systems for drone defense are proliferating.

But systematic deployment of these capabilities throughout all the Baltic states, combined with real-time shared intelligence databases and clear rules of engagement for intercepting Russian threats, remains an unfinished objective. The Ankara summit is an opportunity to prioritize this, with precise financial commitments and binding timelines. Otherwise, Kaliningrad will continue rehearsing its strikes — and one day, perhaps, carry out the real thing.

Every Patriot missile deployed in the Baltics is a direct response to Kaliningrad's Su-24Ms. Missile defense is not an aggressive posture: it is telling Putin that his missiles will not buy him political cooperation. That is the language he understands. Not diplomatic communiqués.

Layered defense against a layered threat

Against Kaliningrad's arsenal — ballistic Iskander-M missiles, cruise missiles, guided bombs launched by Su-24M jets — defending the Baltic states demands a multi-layered architecture. At the top, systems like the American THAAD or the future Arrow-3 to intercept ballistic missiles at high altitude. At the intermediate level, Patriot PAC-3 batteries for cruise missiles and hostile aircraft. At the lower level, SHORAD systems for drones and rockets. Each layer fills the blind spots of the others.

This architecture exists partially in the Baltic states. American Patriots have been deployed in Poland and shorter-range systems partially cover Baltic territories. But coverage remains incomplete. Entire swaths of these territories remain exposed to strikes that current defenses could not fully intercept. The Ankara summit must decide on a systematic deployment plan to close these gaps.

The Baltic Fleet: a naval threat not to be neglected

Kaliningrad's arsenal is not solely land- and air-based. The Russian Baltic Fleet, based in Kaliningrad and Baltiysk, has submarines, missile corvettes, and a naval mining capability that can complicate maritime links to the Baltic states in a crisis. Since Finland and Sweden joined NATO, the Baltic Sea is now virtually an Alliance "inland sea" — but operational mastery of this sea still needs consolidating.

Joint naval exercises, increased NATO presence in Baltic waters, and the deployment of anti-submarine warfare capabilities in the region are essential elements of a comprehensive Eastern Flank defense strategy. These capabilities do not make the headlines of political press releases — they are less photogenic than tanks or missiles — but they are militarily as important as land-based weapons systems.

The Baltic Sea is the other blind spot of Eastern Flank defense. We talk a lot about tanks and missiles. We talk less about Russian submarines and naval mines that could cut maritime links to the Baltic states within hours. That is the dimension military planners at Ankara must take into account.

Preparing populations for resistance

Ukraine has demonstrated something fundamental since 2022: the civil resilience of a population can become a decisive strategic factor. Ukrainian civilians learned to manage power blackouts, maintain communications networks under pressure, and support the war effort while keeping a minimum of economic activity running. This resilience was not innate: it was built, in part, in the years preceding the full-scale invasion, when the Ukrainian armed forces and civil society absorbed the lessons of 2014.

The Baltic states have drawn similar lessons. Estonia has developed the concept of "total defense," involving all of society in defense preparation. Lithuania distributes civil survival manuals and runs mobilization exercises. Latvia invests in redundancy of its critical infrastructure to reduce its vulnerability to cyberattacks and strikes. These measures do not make media headlines, but they form the foundation without which no military defense is viable.

What the West can learn from Kyiv

Ukraine maintained a partial electrical grid despite hundreds of Russian strikes on its power plants and transmission lines. It maintained communication networks despite constant cyberattacks. It maintained a free press, elections, and functioning democratic institutions in wartime — an immense institutional challenge. These achievements carry lessons for the Alliance's democracies that could find themselves in similar situations.

Civil resilience preparedness has long been the poor relation of defensive planning in Western Europe. Countries that have known no war on their territory since 1945 have difficulty concretely imagining what it means to function under bombs. The Baltic states, aware of their vulnerability, have been doing it for years. The Ankara summit should include this often-neglected dimension of collective defense on its agenda.

Ukrainians have been living under bombs for more than four years while maintaining functioning institutions. It is an example of civil resilience without equal in the modern history of democracies. It would be a shame if their allies drew from this painful experience only military lessons and ignored the institutional resilience lessons that Kyiv is teaching them live.

The demilitarization of Kaliningrad: utopia or objective?

In the medium term, the only lasting solution to the strategic problem posed by Kaliningrad is the demilitarization of this enclave. As long as it hosts nuclear-capable Iskanders and armored brigades within striking range of Baltic capitals, it represents a permanent threat that no missile defense can fully neutralize. The demilitarization of Kaliningrad would be part of a comprehensive peace settlement between Russia and the West — a settlement that, in June 2026, seems extremely remote.

This long-term objective must not serve as a pretext for short-term inaction. One cannot decide not to defend the Baltic states today on the grounds that one hopes for a deal that would demilitarize Kaliningrad in ten years. But including the demilitarization of the enclave in the list of objectives for a comprehensive political settlement is a legitimate position that the Eastern Flank countries have the right to assert.

The Alliance for future generations

The decisions taken at Ankara in July 2026 do not concern only the next three or five years. They define the European security architecture for the coming decades. An Alliance that genuinely reinforces its Eastern Flank, deploys the necessary capabilities, and gives the Baltic states and Poland certainty that their sovereignty will be defended — that Alliance can claim to be a stabilizing actor in the international order for the next thirty years.

An Alliance that produces declarations without accompanying them with sufficient military and financial means will generate a disillusionment that corrodes its credibility from within. New generations of decision-makers in member states — and in candidate states — will observe what the Alliance's solidarity promise is worth. Kaliningrad is rehearsing its strikes. That is an invitation to finally take collective defense seriously.

Ankara's decisions will be judged in twenty years, when historians write about this period. Either they will write that the Alliance measured the threat and built a defense equal to it. Or they will write that it left the Baltic states with hollow promises. The choice is being made now, in the conference rooms of Beştepe on July 7 and 8, 2026.

Memory as a political duty

The Baltic states carry a memory that Western Europe does not have. The mass deportations of the 1940s, the Soviet occupation that lasted half a century, the armed resistance of the "forest brothers" who held out into the 1950s — all of this is not ancient history for Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. It is the living memory of their grandparents, sometimes of their parents. And that memory tells them that Russian aggressions are not historical accidents: they follow a recurring pattern that only force can contain.

Defending the Baltic states today also means honoring that memory. It means telling the peoples who resisted Soviet occupation that their choice of the West, of democracy, of the European Union and of NATO will not be betrayed. It is a moral debt the Alliance assumed by admitting these countries — a debt that Ankara must honor concretely, not merely rhetorically.

Passing on strategic clarity

The generation that lived through the Cold War knew, viscerally, that the Soviet threat was real and that robust defense was the condition of freedom. This conviction survived the 1990s and 2000s less intact than it should have: the "peace dividend" anesthetized risk awareness in many European decision-makers. One can only hope that the war in Ukraine — terrible as it is — will at least serve to awaken this strategic clarity and pass it on to the coming generation of decision-makers.

The Baltic states, Poland, and Finland never lost this clarity. They kept it alive against all odds, even when their Western allies looked at them with benevolent condescension. Today, they are the ones who were right all along. Listening to their message is not only the right strategic choice — it is also a form of long-overdue historical justice.

I am a columnist, not a prophet. But here is what I know: the countries that have lived under occupation know things about freedom that countries which have never lost it do not. That knowledge, the Baltic states are offering to the Alliance. The only question is whether we will have the wisdom to accept it.

The price of indifference

In 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, many said it was "far away" and "complicated." In 2022, when it invaded Ukraine, many said "Putin would never attack NATO." Today, Russian bombers are training to strike our allies from an enclave at the heart of Europe, Latvian intelligence is alerting allies to hybrid attacks in preparation, and Western officials admit fearing an imminent provocation in the Baltics.

At what point does the West decide that the repetition of alarm signals justifies a proportionate response? At what point does the complicity of indifference become a shared moral responsibility for all that might follow? The threat is on our doorstep. Kaliningrad is rehearsing it live, publicly, without concealment. The ball is in our court.

What we owe our Baltic allies

We owe the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians who joined our Alliance one simple thing: certainty that Article 5 means something. That an attack on one is an attack on all, and that this formula is not a rhetorical figure but a real military commitment, backed by the means necessary to defend it. They came to NATO with their histories of suffering under Soviet occupation. They deserve better than a symbolic tripwire and conditional promises.

The Ankara summit must send this message with the clarity and force the situation demands. Kaliningrad has spoken. Now the Alliance must respond at the level the threat requires.

Kaliningrad has been speaking for years. Its missiles aimed at our allies, its bombers training over the Baltic, its arsenals growing — all of this is a message the West hears but from which it has not drawn all the consequences. It is time to listen truly. Before the message is delivered another way.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

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