Did Russia really have an attempted coup? Or, did The Wagner Group manage to move thousands of men from their location to another much closer to Ukraine without anyone noticing? Did the Wagner troops lose their nerve, as the Head of the CIA says? Or was the whole thing theatre? Either way, there are so many Wagner and Russian troops in Belarus now that NATO is monitoring this closely. They are also closer to Ukraine and to the critical strategic location known as NATO’s Achilles Heel: The Suwalki Gap. I wrote about this Gap back in January 2022. Russia has taken its time to surround itself with its military assets. Here’s why we all need to watch the Suwalki Gap.
A glance at the map of Europe shows this little 40-mile gap that separates Belarus from Kaliningrad, right on the border between Poland and Lithuania. 40 miles is not very far. Here’s what Russia would get if they tried to grab this little stretch of land. Russia would be able to access the sea directly through Kaliningrad. They’d create a wedge that separates the Baltic states from the West, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, all of whom have been seen as a thorn in the side of Russia ever since their independence. Russia will also face a direct fight with NATO if one centimeter of Poland is touched. Poland and Lithuania used to form a single Kingdom. Both nations are reinforcing that ancient alliance now, so even if Russia kept the fight on the Lithuanian side of the border, we can be sure that Poland would get involved immediately and forcefully. Remember that Poland is about to have the largest military in Europe, and they have the toughest attitude of all to Russian adventuring. It is easy to imagine a moment where NATO says let’s not respond to a Russian provocation, and Poland says let’s respond without NATO.
Already forces are assembling at this choke point. The Wagner troops are already massing on the Belarus border, readying to hit NATO’s “soft underbelly.” The Polish Defence Minister is tweeting that Poland has already created a new military engineering battalion to address this border problem. He adds, as Newsweek reports, “This is another military unit built by us from scratch, and I assure you that it will not be the last one,” adding, "We care about the security of the eastern flank!"
Lithuania already closed the border with the Kaliningrad Oblast last year. To be clear, Kaliningrad is not an independent state. It is Russia. The Lithuanians blocked all