May 31, 2016
It is always
risky to derive intentions from capacities, but Moscow’s moves to create new
military units opposite the Baltic states suggests that the Kremlin now has the
capacity to invade Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, something that seems absurd
to the West but may not to those who live in Vladimir Putin’s “alternate
reality.”
In a commentary in today’s
“Postimees,” Vadim Shtepa, a Karelian regionalist now living in
exile in Estonia, says that 20 years ago it would have appeared ridiculous to
talk about any Russian invasion of the Baltic countries. Russia accepted their
independence and sought to develop good relations.
“the new unit is
capable of leveling the threat from the side of the Baltic countries,” adding
that “the new Russian divisions will become the hammer which will crush any defense”
they might think to offer.
But today, he
says, it appears “history is repeating itself. Putin’s Russia ever more
conceives of itself as the literal continuation of the USSR with that state’s
attempts to dictate its will to other countries. And if these countries conduct
an independent policy, they aren’t protected from suffering Russian military
invasions,” be in Prague in 1968 or Ukraine now.
And this Soviet
restorationism is not just at the level of rhetoric but also at the level of
institutional practice. In 2015, Moscow recreated the First Guards Tank Army,
which had existed in the USSR between 1943 and 1991 and in the Russian forces
until 1999. That force is clearly available for use against the Baltic
countries.
On May 11, Shtepa
notes, Moscow’s Zvezda television channel reported that “the new unit is
capable of leveling the threat from the side of the Baltic countries,” adding
that “the new Russian divisions will become the hammer which will crush any
defense” they might think to offer.
This army
includes, according to Russian officials, “no fewer than 500 to 600 tanks, 600
to 800 armored personal carriers, 300 to 400 pieces of field artillery, and
35,000 to 50,000 soldiers.” More, these officials say that it is being equipped
with the most modern versions of all weapons Moscow now has.
Russian writers
like Viktor Murakhovsky have sought to reassure the Baltic
people that they have nothing to fear from this division as it is primarily
located near Moscow. But another Russian expert has pointed out that it could be moved forward to the
Baltic borders very quickly if the Kremlin decided to act.
And as Aleksandr
Golts of “Yezhednevny zhurnal” has put it: Moscow has “really approached to a
turning point in its relations with the surrounding world. Now, no one in the
West discusses whether Russia has aggressive intentions; instead, all discuss
how it will realize these plans.”
And Golts adds:
many Russian commanders say that as soon as it is organized, “the first guards
tank army will take the Baltics.” Other experts based in the West concur and point to some the special units (citing this) that have been
created within that army which would be of use only in an aggressive campaign.
And the creation
of that Russian army is not the only such institutional change in Russian
military forces: Earlier this month, Russian commanders announced the formation
of a new army corps in Kaliningrad. It is under the command of Maj.Gen.Yury
Yarovitsky who earlier was deputy chief of staff
of the First Guards Tank Army.
Those who dismiss
the possibility of a Russian move against the Baltic countries often cite the
fact that the three are members of NATO. For them, such an invasion is as
impossible as was the Anschluss of Crimea three years ago. And they forget the
conclusion of some that the West is not “prepared to die for Narva”.
“From a rational
point of view,” Shtepa says, any Russian invasion would be ridiculous,
especially now that there is a trip wire of NATO forces in the three Baltic
countries. But rationality may not be in play here. As Angela Merkel has
pointed out, Putin lives in “a different reality” and apparently a majority of
Russians do as well.
And thus
tragedies are possible, he suggests. Years ago, Yevgeny Yevtushenko asked in a
poem “Do the Russians want war?” Then, no one did, but today, Shtepa points
out, “the Russian hurrah patriotic publicists answer this question in the
affirmative: ‘Russia is ready for the coming cataclysms, for a Major War.’”
Given such
attitudes, one can only assume that the Kremlin is prepared to launch one, even
if when and where remain unclear – and the only reasonable approach is to keep
track of Russia’s development of its capacities as an indication of what it is
thinking about now and may very well do, however “absurd” that may be.
Republished from Window
on Eurasia
