Don’t look now, but Russia is modernizing its military infrastructure and expanding its force structure in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad – which borders NATO members Poland and Lithuania.
And as the political crisis in Belarus drags into its eighth month, the Kremlin is clearly trying to leverage Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s isolation and vulnerability in order to achieve Moscow’s longtime goal of expanding Russia’s military footprint on the territory of its smaller but strategically vital Western neighbor. And that has gotten the attention of Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, all of whom border Belarus.
So all is not exactly all quiet on NATO’s Eastern Front. And on this week’s Power Vertical Podcast, host Brian Whitmore speaks to military analyst Michael Kofman of the CNA Corporation about what it all means.