{"id":407207,"date":"2025-09-08T07:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T07:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/407207\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T07:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T07:03:10","slug":"natos-eastern-flank-braces-for-russias-war-games-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/407207\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO\u2019s eastern flank braces for Russia\u2019s war games \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some drills \u2014 near the Belarusian village of Gozha and in Kaliningrad\u2019s Dobrovolsk \u2014 will take place just a few dozen kilometers from Poland and Lithuania. Troops will also be positioned on both sides of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/suwalki-gap-russia-war-nato-lithuania-poland-border\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Suwa\u0142ki Gap<\/a>, the 70-kilometer corridor between Belarus and Kaliningrad widely seen as one of Europe\u2019s most vulnerable defense bottlenecks.<\/p>\n<p>Lithuania\u2019s military intelligence expects that up to 30,000 soldiers will participate in Zapad\u2014 far less than in 2021, which saw around 200,000 soldiers take part. <\/p>\n<p>That is far from what Russia would need to attack a NATO member, especially as the war in Ukraine is ongoing, Janeli\u016bnas said.<\/p>\n<p>Escalation risk<\/p>\n<p>However, Moscow could use the drills to test NATO\u2019s reaction to provocations such as airspace violations, cyberattacks or even sabotage of civilian infrastructure \u2014 gauging how quickly allies respond and whether they pin responsibility on Russia.<\/p>\n<p>That raises the danger of escalation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is entirely possible that certain coinciding signals could be interpreted as an actual attack on NATO countries,\u201d Janeli\u016bnas said.\u00a0\u201cOne has to understand a simple fact: During military exercises, when weapons are ready \u2026 it is often difficult to distinguish simulation from real military action.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Godliauskas said Lithuania is capable of differentiating threats. \u201cWe have the ability to observe and respond, and to distinguish between an accident and a real threat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Despite that, Godliauskas said, \u201cit\u2019s unrealistic to expect a zero probability of air incursions.\u201d Two drones entered Lithuanian airspace from Belarus in July, and the country recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/LRKAM\/posts\/pfbid0SqyrEhs86sYAwHvsuJJ5JDMRXCkxT64SMrCMz5thEaEYdyidWNFsd8P7VHC1PF5xl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">closed its airspace<\/a> along the Belarus border until Oct. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some drills \u2014 near the Belarusian village of Gozha and in Kaliningrad\u2019s Dobrovolsk \u2014 will take place just&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[1111,2000,299,1114,2597,104313,2821,770,332,657,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-407207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-belarus","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-lithuania","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-military-exercises","14":"tag-nato","15":"tag-poland","16":"tag-russia","17":"tag-ukraine","18":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}