INVESTIGATION: Kaliningrad, Forward Base: What Russia's Baltic Strike Rehearsals Reveal

INVESTIGATION: Kaliningrad, Forward Base: What Russia's Baltic Strike Rehearsals Reveal

Introduction: An Airfield Rehearsing for War

June 21, 2026, over the Baltic

On June 21, 2026, NATO surveillance radars once again registered the familiar and unsettling activity coming out of Kaliningrad's skies. Su-24M tactical bombers of the Russian military took off in formation from the Russian enclave and flew profiles that, according to Army Recognition analysts, replicate attack trajectories toward targets in the Baltic region. They were escorted by Su-30SM2 multirole fighters, whose presence clearly signals rehearsal of an offensive scenario involving the suppression of adversary air defenses.

This was not the first time. These rehearsals have been multiplying for several months, with growing frequency and sophistication. They constitute one of the most tangible and best-documented signals of Russian military preparation in the Baltic region — and one of the most preoccupying subjects for NATO planners as the Ankara summit of July 7–8, 2026 approaches.

What this investigation seeks to untangle

What exactly do these rehearsals mean? Are they preparation for an imminent act of aggression, a capability demonstration designed to maintain psychological pressure on allies, or simply exercises to maintain operational proficiency in a high-tension context? This question cannot receive a definitive answer from outside intelligence circles — but systematic analysis of the available facts allows us to draw a picture that deserves serious attention.

This investigation draws exclusively on available open sources — military expert reports, declassified intelligence analyses, official statements from Baltic governments and NATO — in an attempt to answer a simple question: what do the Russian strike rehearsals from Kaliningrad really tell us?

Kaliningrad: Anatomy of a Forward Base

The history of an enclave that should not exist

Kaliningrad is a geographic anomaly born of war. The city was called Königsberg before 1945: the capital of East Prussia, a cultural jewel of northern Germany, birthplace of philosopher Immanuel Kant. In 1945, the Red Army conquered the city in extremely brutal fighting, and the Potsdam Conference awarded the territory to the Soviet Union. The German population was expelled, a new Russian population settled, and the city became Kaliningrad.

With the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the Kaliningrad enclave found itself geographically separated from Russia by the newly independent republics of Lithuania and Belarus, and then further isolated when these countries joined NATO and the EU. Today, Kaliningrad is surrounded on all sides by NATO members — a unique situation in the European security architecture, and a permanent source of strategic tension.

The enclave's military arsenal

Despite its limited area of roughly 15,000 km², Kaliningrad concentrates disproportionate military power relative to its size. The enclave houses elements of the Russian Baltic Fleet, with surface ships and submarines; Russian air force units equipped with Su-24M, Su-30SM2, and other types; S-400 and S-300 surface-to-air missile systems; Iskander-M ballistic missiles with dual conventional and nuclear capability; and advanced electronic warfare capabilities, notably the Krasukha-4 system capable of disrupting adversary radars and communications.

This concentration of capabilities in such a small space makes Kaliningrad an "A2/AD bubble" — an anti-access/area denial zone — that significantly complicates NATO's air and naval operations in the Baltic region. Any Alliance aircraft or vessel operating in the zone must account for the permanent threat that the Kaliningrad arsenal represents.

The Su-24M Fencer: Understanding the Weapon of Choice

Portrait of a Cold War bomber that remains formidable

The Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer entered service with the Soviet military in 1974. It is a twin-engine, variable-geometry wing jet bomber, with a swing-wing design that adapts its flight characteristics to different mission phases. It can fly at very low altitude at supersonic speeds — a capability specifically designed to penetrate under the radar ceiling of enemy defenses and evade surface-to-air missiles.

Despite its age, the Su-24M — the modernized version still in use at Kaliningrad — remains a formidable platform for tactical strike missions. It can carry a variety of payloads: unguided bombs, anti-radiation missiles to destroy enemy radars, short-range cruise missiles, and laser- or TV-guided bombs. Its low-altitude penetration capability makes it a difficult threat to intercept for missile defenses optimized against high-altitude threats.

The flight profiles observed on June 21

The details of the June 21, 2026 exercises documented by Army Recognition indicate that the Su-24Ms flew low-altitude approaches simulating attacks on coastal targets and military installations in the Baltic region. These flight profiles are not those of generic training exercises — they replicate specific trajectories corresponding to identifiable targets in neighboring countries.

The escort role of the Su-30SM2s in these missions is analytically important. The Su-30s are dual-role fighters: they can escort the Su-24s by protecting the attack package against enemy fighters, and they can themselves conduct air-to-ground strikes with precision weapons. Their simultaneous presence alongside Su-24s in a coherent mission profile suggests training for combined offensive air operation scenarios — not air defense exercises.

The Russian Baltic Fleet: A Degraded but Present Force

The losses sustained since 2022

The Russian Baltic Fleet, based at Kaliningrad and Baltiysk, has undergone significant changes since 2022. Some of its most capable units have been redeployed, and the fleet has had to adapt to a maritime environment profoundly altered by the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO. The Baltic Sea is now almost entirely surrounded by Alliance members, which considerably complicates Russian naval operations in those waters.

Ukrainian operations against the Black Sea Fleet have also had an indirect effect on Russian naval psychology, demonstrating that even modern surface ships are vulnerable to drone and missile attacks. Although the Baltic Sea situation differs from the Black Sea, these vulnerability demonstrations have modified Russian operational calculations.

The role of submarines in the Kaliningrad strategy

Submarines based at Kaliningrad constitute a discreet but significant strategic component. In a conflict scenario, they could conduct mining operations in the maritime approaches to Baltic ports, attack NATO's maritime communications lines, or launch missile strikes against land targets. Their detection and neutralization in the Baltic Sea — shallow water favorable to anti-submarine warfare — is easier than in open ocean, but it remains an operational challenge for the Alliance's navies.

The construction of new submarine infrastructure at Kaliningrad, documented by commercial satellite imagery, suggests that Russia is investing in maintaining and developing its submarine capabilities in the enclave. This is not the behavior of a military force that has lost interest in the Baltic region.

The Iskander Systems: Nuclear Threat Within Reach

A dual-capable missile in a sensitive enclave

The Iskander-M missiles deployed at Kaliningrad are perhaps the most strategically significant component of the Kaliningrad arsenal. With a range of 500 kilometers and metric precision, these missiles can strike targets throughout the Baltic States, Poland, Finland, and even Berlin. Their capacity to carry tactical nuclear warheads — even if their current configuration at Kaliningrad is not publicly known — is what makes them strategically different from purely conventional missiles.

The Russian doctrine of "nuclear de-escalation" — the idea that a limited tactical nuclear strike could force an adversary to negotiate rather than escalate — is a permanent concern for NATO planners. The Iskanders of Kaliningrad are the potential instrument of this doctrine in the Baltic context. Their mere existence forces Alliance planners to integrate the nuclear dimension into their crisis scenarios, even for incidents that begin as conventional.

Missile exercises as political signals

Russia has regularly organized missile exercises at Kaliningrad, often in response to NATO actions or Western political declarations. These exercises are political signals as much as military training: they remind the Alliance and its members that Russia retains a permanent strike capability at the heart of the European security architecture.

The timing of these exercises — often coinciding with NATO summits, weapons deliveries to Ukraine, or ally declarations about strengthening their defenses — is not accidental. It is a form of strategic communication that European capitals read carefully and sometimes with undisguised concern.

Electronic Warfare: A Domain of Russian Excellence

GPS jamming documented for years

One of the best-documented aspects of the Kaliningrad threat is electronic warfare, and specifically GPS jamming. For several years, civilian pilots operating over the Baltic countries, Poland, Finland, and Sweden have regularly reported GPS signal disruptions that complicate navigation. The Finnish Civil Aviation Authority has documented these incidents and attributed them to Russian sources.

These disruptions affect not only civilian aircraft, but also the navigation systems of vessels in the Baltic Sea and potentially the weapons systems of NATO forces that depend on GPS for precision. Western military forces' excessive dependence on GPS is a recognized vulnerability that Russia has identified and deliberately exploits. The deployment of the Krasukha-4 system at Kaliningrad — an advanced electronic warfare system — illustrates Russia's investment in this capability.

Military communications as a priority target

Beyond GPS jamming, Russian electronic warfare targets military communications systems. Disrupting communications between headquarters, combat units, and weapons systems is a priority in Russian doctrine during the initial phase of any military operation. Kaliningrad, with its sophisticated electronic warfare systems, can exert significant influence on communications within a radius of several hundred kilometers — covering all of the Baltic States and portions of Poland and Finland.

NATO has invested in electronic warfare-resistant communication systems — satellite communications, advanced encryption systems, degraded-mode communication protocols. But no system is perfectly immune, and the advantage of the attacker who chooses the timing and method of disruption remains significant in the first hours of a crisis.

The Intelligence Services' Interpretation

What the Latvian alerts say

The alerts issued by Latvian intelligence services in June 2026, reported notably by Fox News on June 22, represent a significant source of information on the threat assessment by national services with privileged access to signals of Russian activity in the region. Latvia, by virtue of its geographic position and history, has developed particularly advanced expertise in monitoring and analyzing Russian military activities near its borders.

The fact that these services judged it useful to make public their alerts about Russian preparations for hybrid provocations is itself a signal. Intelligence services do not make public statements lightly — especially in a context where incorrect information could be exploited by Moscow for its own narratives. These alerts were therefore carefully weighed before being communicated, which gives them particular weight.

The convergence of Western assessments

The information reported by the Guardian on June 26, 2026 about Russian provocation preparations, and by the Telegraph on June 27 about Western officials' suspicions of a possible attack on a Baltic state, are not isolated assessments. They reflect a convergence of evaluations within several allied intelligence services.

This convergence matters: when several independent services, using different methods and sources, arrive at similar conclusions, the probability that the assessment is correct increases significantly. Intelligence divergences — situations where different services reach contradictory conclusions — are frequent and warrant caution. Convergence, by contrast, deserves serious attention.

Allied Exercises in Response

The reinforced NATO presence as a message

Faced with the Russian strike rehearsals and alerts about planned provocations, NATO responded by intensifying its own exercises in the region. Allied fighter rotations based in the Baltic countries were reinforced, naval patrols in the Baltic Sea increased, and integrated air defense exercises multiplied. These responses aim to send a clear message: the Baltic air and maritime space is under permanent surveillance.

Poland simultaneously reinforced its radar surveillance capabilities over the Suwalki Corridor and deployed additional missile batteries in its northeastern region. These deployments are direct responses to Kaliningrad activities, and their visibility — unlike the usually discreet tactical measures — is deliberate. The goal is to make obvious to Moscow that NATO's defensive preparation is active and responsive to its own signals.

Early identification as deterrence

One of the most effective responses to Russian strike rehearsals is demonstrating that every movement is identified, tracked, and analyzed. When NATO intelligence services make public — even partially — the Russian military activities at Kaliningrad, they signal to Moscow that surveillance is permanent and effective. This targeted transparency is a deterrence tool: if Putin knows that every preparation is visible, the element of surprise — precious in any military operation — is reduced.

NATO has developed a surveillance and early warning architecture considerably strengthened since 2022. E-3 AWACS surveillance aircraft, GlobalHawk drones, commercial and military satellites, ground sensors in member countries — all contribute to a real-time operational picture that would limit the possibility of a surprise strike from Kaliningrad.

The Strategic Objectives of the Rehearsals: Multiple Possible Readings

Hypothesis 1: preparation for a real act of aggression

The first reading of the Russian strike rehearsals from Kaliningrad is the most alarming: they constitute operational preparation for a real act of aggression against the Baltic States or Poland. In this hypothesis, the exercises serve to refine attack procedures, train crews on specific trajectories corresponding to real targets, and test NATO's reaction times.

This hypothesis is consistent with other concerning signals: the intensification of Russian hybrid activities in the region, the alerts from Baltic and Western intelligence services, and the Russian doctrine that calls for pre-emptive strikes against enemy command infrastructure at the opening of a military operation. It cannot be excluded, but it implies that Putin is ready to risk a direct war with NATO — a decision with potentially catastrophic consequences even for Russia.

Hypothesis 2: capability demonstration for psychological pressure

The second hypothesis is that these rehearsals are primarily tools of psychological pressure — capability demonstrations designed to maintain anxiety in Baltic capitals and NATO circles, to influence debates on defense spending, and to signal that Russia remains a capable military actor in the region despite its difficulties in Ukraine.

In this hypothesis, the exercises are costly for Russia — in fuel, flight hours, and equipment wear — but their strategic "return on investment" is the anxiety they generate in Western military headquarters and chancelleries. This anxiety can influence ally decisions on maintaining American presence in Europe, on the timeline and nature of support to Ukraine, and on diplomatic options under consideration.

Baltic State Resilience Against the Air Threat

The air defense systems deployed

The Baltic States are not defenseless against the air threats posed by the Su-24M and Su-30SM2 aircraft from Kaliningrad. Since 2022, allied Patriot missile defense systems have been deployed in the region, NASAMS batteries provide medium-altitude coverage, and portable Stingers and other short-range systems complete the layered defense. These systems create a layered defense that significantly complicates the mission for Russian bombers.

Allied fighters rotating through the Baltic countries — the Alliance's Baltic Air Policing mission is conducted by different NATO member nations on a rotation system from bases at Šiauliai in Lithuania and Ämari in Estonia — constitute the active component of this defense. These aircraft are on permanent alert and could intercept Russian aircraft that penetrated Baltic airspace. Quick reaction alert scramble times, engagement procedures, and rules of engagement are defined and regularly exercised.

The limits of existing air defense

Despite these capabilities, significant gaps remain. Radar coverage is not uniform across the entire region; certain altitudes and trajectories remain difficult to monitor effectively; and the capacity to simultaneously manage attacks from ballistic missiles, combat aircraft, and drones requires a command integration that will only be fully operational when current investments are fully deployed.

A massive attack scenario simultaneously involving Iskander missiles, low-altitude Su-24M strikes, cyberattacks against command systems, and intensive electronic warfare would represent a formidable challenge for Baltic integrated air defense. This is why the Baltic countries argue for a permanent, non-rotational presence of allied forces on their territory — with systems already deployed, known, and integrated into national defense.

Ukraine as a Learning Ground for Kaliningrad

The lessons of Ukrainian strikes for Russian planners

The war in Ukraine is a learning ground for all belligerents, including Russian military planners responsible for Kaliningrad's capabilities. They observe how Russian artillery is hit by Ukrainian drones, how air defense systems adapt to different threats, how the precision of missiles and guided bombs affects defensive tactics. These lessons are directly applicable to strike scenarios in the Baltic region.

They also observe how deep Ukrainian drone strikes — such as the strike on Ufa documented on June 25, 2026 at more than 1,300 kilometers — have shown that strategic depth no longer provides the same protection as before. Kaliningrad planners are integrating these lessons into their own capabilities — but also into their defenses against a potential Ukrainian or allied response.

Drones as a new dimension of the Kaliningrad threat

Long-range drones constitute a new dimension of the threat that Kaliningrad can project onto neighboring countries. Reconnaissance and strike drones, deployed from the enclave, could harass Baltic defenses, collect real-time intelligence, and guide artillery or missile strikes with increased precision. The drone employment doctrine developed and refined by Russia in Ukraine is directly transferable to the Baltic context.

NATO is developing counter-drone capabilities — detection systems, jammers, kinetic interceptors — but this is a fast-evolving technological arms race. Today's defensive measures can be overtaken by tomorrow's offensive capabilities, and vice versa. This perpetual offensive-defensive innovation cycle is one of the characteristics of future warfare that Kaliningrad illustrates perfectly.

Escalation Scenarios: From Provocation to War

The mechanics of unwanted escalation

One of the major concerns for strategists is the risk of unintended escalation — a situation where a series of actions and reactions, each perceived as defensive or proportionate by the initiator, leads to a war that no one truly wanted. History offers many examples of this fatal chain reaction. In the context of current tensions around Kaliningrad and the Baltic States, this risk is real.

An aerial incident — for example, a Su-30 fighter that approaches too close to a NATO aircraft and causes an accidental collision — could quickly create a crisis situation where political pressure on both sides not to "back down" would lead to successive escalation steps. The "guardrail" doctrine — crisis and accident management mechanisms — developed during the Cold War has been partially reactivated, but in a context of far more degraded Russia-West relations than at that time.

The red line Putin must not cross

The essential question is: what is the red line that Putin cannot cross without triggering a massive conventional military response from NATO? This line must be sufficiently clear to be credible — Putin must know the line exists — but not so precise as to serve as a guide for a "salami slicing" strategy where Russia takes slices just below the Article 5 trigger threshold.

Strategic ambiguity is double-edged: it gives NATO flexibility to respond to provocations without automatically triggering nuclear escalation, but it also gives Putin the ability to act in gray zones without certainty about the response. Finding the balance between these two imperatives — enough clarity to deter, enough flexibility to manage — is one of the fundamental challenges of Alliance strategy against the Kaliningrad threat.

What to Do with the Information About Kaliningrad?

Proportionate and visible responses

The ultimate political question is: what should NATO do with the accumulated information on Kaliningrad's military activities? The first answer is a reinforced and visible presence: more fighters rotating through the Baltic States, more missile defense systems deployed, more joint exercises documented and communicated. These visible measures serve deterrence by signaling to Moscow that Kaliningrad's activities do not purchase surprise — they generate a proportionate defensive response.

The second answer is diplomatic: bring the data on Kaliningrad military activities before international bodies — the UN Security Council, the OSCE, bilateral communications with Moscow. This approach will probably not change Russian behavior in the short term, but it creates a documented record that can be important for mobilizing international public opinion and for future legal proceedings or sanctions.

The pressure to accelerate Ankara's decisions

The third answer — the most directly useful — is to use the anxiety generated by Kaliningrad's activities as an additional argument to accelerate the decisions at the Ankara summit. The dozens of billions in defense contracts announced by Rutte ahead of the summit must include measures specifically designed to strengthen the air defense and electronic resilience of the Baltic States. The Kaliningrad threat must translate into concrete investments, not merely declarations of concern.

This concrete test will ultimately allow us to judge the value of the Ankara summit: did it produce responses adapted to the documented threat from Kaliningrad, or did it produce general declarations about GDP percentages? Zelensky is waiting for shells; the Baltic States are waiting for anti-missile systems. They have, respectively, an urgency and a right to both.

Baltic Airspace: A First-Order Strategic Issue

Enhanced air surveillance after the Kaliningrad incidents

The aerial strike rehearsals from Kaliningrad have directly led to an intensification of Baltic airspace surveillance by NATO allies. The Alliance's air policing missions, operated on a rotation by different member nations from the bases at Šiauliai in Lithuania and Ämari in Estonia, were reinforced in response to Russian provocations. F-16, Eurofighter, and Rafale fighters take turns maintaining a continuous presence in airspace that Moscow considers its natural sphere of influence.

Radar data from NATO's AWACS surveillance aircraft — which perform regular rotations over the Baltic region — have allowed precise documentation of the flight patterns of Russian aircraft from Kaliningrad. This data is valuable for military planners: it allows them to distinguish routine exercises from preparations for real strikes. The line between the two is not always obvious, and the intelligence services of the Baltic countries spend countless hours analyzing it.

Missile defense: the priority link in Baltic protection

Facing the ballistic and cruise missile capabilities deployed at Kaliningrad — notably the Iskander-M systems with their dual conventional and nuclear capability — the Baltic States and their allies have considerably strengthened their missile defense architecture. The delivery of Patriot PAC-3 systems to several Eastern Flank countries, combined with Franco-Italian SAMP/T systems and modernized Hawk batteries, creates a multilayered defensive architecture that NATO planners still describe as insufficient but which represents a significant improvement over the 2022 situation.

The deployment of a German Patriot battery in Lithuania — announced in 2022 and then extended — is emblematic of this buildup. Germany, despite its hesitations on other issues, has maintained this concrete commitment. The surface-to-air missile batteries are visible, measurable, and send a clear signal to Kaliningrad planners: a strike against the Baltic States will not be an easy exercise. Conventional deterrence, layer by layer, is being built.

Conclusion: Kaliningrad as a Thermometer of Russian Intent

Read the exercises, not the words

Kaliningrad is the most reliable thermometer of Russian military intent in the Baltic region. Putin can say whatever he likes in diplomatic speeches — present himself as ready to negotiate, propose security agreements, denounce NATO's "provocations." What matters is what the aircraft taking off from Chkalovsk airfield at Kaliningrad are doing, what the submarines patrolling from Baltiysk are preparing, and what the Iskander system exercises are targeting.

On June 21, 2026, those aircraft were training to strike targets in the Baltic States. This fact, documented by Army Recognition, is not speculation. It is a military reality that must inform the decisions of the Ankara summit. To ignore this signal, to contextualize it away, to file it under "routine exercises," would be a mistake whose consequences could be paid for at a very high price.

The urgency of collective decision

NATO has the instruments to respond to the threat from Kaliningrad: surveillance systems, defensive capabilities, operational plans, and determined allies. What it sometimes lacks is rapid and firm collective political decision. The Ankara summit is an opportunity to fill that gap — to transform analysis into decision, anxiety into investment, and alerts into concrete responses.

The Su-24Ms of Kaliningrad are training. The NATO soldiers in the Baltic States are training too. The question is not which side is better prepared in terms of equipment, but which has the political determination to follow through if the provocation exceeds the acceptable threshold. Zelensky answered that question on February 24, 2022. The rest of the Alliance still needs to provide its own answer.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Method and limits of this investigation

This investigation rests exclusively on open sources — press articles, published military expert reports, official statements. I have no access to classified intelligence data or to NATO's internal reports on Kaliningrad's activities. The information I have compiled is real, verifiable, and sourced — but it necessarily constitutes a subset of the total information available on this subject.

My analysis of Russian intent is an interpretation based on available facts. It may be incorrect. I am biased toward a serious reading of the Russian threat — an acknowledged bias that stems from my pro-European and pro-Ukrainian convictions. Analysts more inclined toward appeasement will likely find my conclusions overly alarmist.

What I acknowledge not knowing

I do not know exactly what the Russian military is planning at Kaliningrad. I do not know the precise degree of operational readiness of these forces nor their actual orders. I cannot predict whether a provocation will occur, nor in what form. What I can assert is that the documented activities are incompatible with a purely defensive or generic deterrence posture — they correspond to specific offensive exercises.

Analytical caution requires me to acknowledge the possibility that these rehearsals never materialize into real action, and that their primary effect is precisely the anxiety they generate in Western military headquarters. That possibility does not change the fundamental conclusion: preparation is preferable to unpreparedness.

Sources

Primary sources

Army Recognition — Russia rehearses Baltic strike operations from Kaliningrad — June 21, 2026

The Guardian — Russia preparing possible provocation in Baltic states or Poland — June 26, 2026

Fox News — Russia preparing hybrid attacks on NATO's eastern flank — June 22, 2026

The Telegraph — Western officials suspect possible Russian attack on Baltic NATO state — June 27, 2026

Secondary sources

ISW — Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment June 23, 2026

The Guardian — NATO leaders fear they can no longer rely on US — June 27, 2026

European Parliament — Briefing on NATO Ankara summit and Eastern Flank security — June 26, 2026