MARIJAMPOLE, Lithuania—European governments are preparing for war with Russia. The recently released wargame shows that they are not ready.
Many European security and political leaders say Europe’s tensions with President Trump over Greenland, Ukraine, trade and other matters make Russian infiltration or outright invasion of North Atlantic Treaty Organization and EU countries more likely.
They tell that Russia has switched a war economyFocusing national resources on rearmament programs and military recruitment that go far beyond the needs of the campaign in Ukraine.
The main question is: how soon? The earlier perception in Berlin and other capitals was that Russia would not be able to threaten NATO until 2029 or thereabouts. There is now a growing consensus that such a crisis could come very soon – before Europe, which is increasing its investment in defence, is in a position to fight back.
“Our assessment is that Russia will be able to move large amounts of troops within a year,” Dutch Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said in an interview. “We see that they are already increasing their strategic inventory, and expanding their presence and assets on NATO borders.”
President Vladimir Putin wants to revive the glory of the Russian empire, making countries that were once part of it, such as the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, an obvious target. All of them have been members of the European Union and NATO for two decades.
“The concern in my country is very obvious, but at the same time, we are preparing to defend ourselves,” said Devidas Matulionis, Lithuania’s national security adviser. While Lithuania expects the US and other NATO allies to assist in case of Russian incursions, he said, the country’s own troops should not be underestimated: “Of course, they will fight even before reinforcements arrive.”
NATO military planners are also concerned about possible Russian designs on Swedish, Finnish and Danish islands in the baltic seaA campaign of attacks on European strategic infrastructure, including parts of Poland, and Norway and Finland in the far north, as well as the Dutch port of Rotterdam in the west.
The exercise simulating the Russian incursion into Lithuania, organized in December by Germany’s Die Welt newspaper in conjunction with the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces, had already become a topic of heated conversation within Europe’s security establishment before the newspaper reported it. published its results on Thursday. The exercise involved 16 former senior German and NATO officials, lawmakers and leading security experts role-playing a scenario set in October 2026.
In this exercise Russia made the excuse of humanitarian crisis Russian exclave of Kaliningrad To seize the Lithuanian city of Marijampol, a key crossroads in the narrow gap between Russia and Belarus. The Russian portrayal of the invasion as a humanitarian mission was enough for the US to refuse to invoke NATO’s Article 5 which calls for Allied assistance. Germany proved indecisive and Poland did not send troops across the border into Lithuania while mobilizing. German brigades already deployed in Lithuania failed to intervene, as Russia used drones to lay mines on the roads leading out of their base.
“Deterrence depends not only on capabilities, but also on what the enemy thinks of our willingness, and in the war games my ‘Russian colleagues’ and I knew: Germany would hesitate. And that was enough to win,” said Franz-Stefan Gaddy, a Vienna-based military analyst who played the role of Russian Chief of the General Staff.
A town of about 35,000 people, Marijampol is at one of the most strategic highway intersections in Europe. To the south-west is the Via Baltica superhighway leading to Poland, which is loaded with trucks from all over the EU and Ukraine. Leading to the west is a transit road between Belarus and Kaliningrad that Lithuania must keep open to Russian traffic under a treaty. This week, it was busy with Russian trucks, most of whose containers were unmarked, passing just before the border, a tower with Ukrainian and Lithuanian flags and the motto “Together to Victory.”
In the war game, in the absence of American leadership, Russia managed to destroy NATO’s credibility and establish dominance over the Baltic, deploying an initial force of only 15,000 troops in a matter of days.
“The Russians achieved most of their targets without moving many of their units,” said Bartlomiej Kot, a Polish security analyst who played the role of the Polish prime minister in the exercise. “It showed me that once we face escalating tensions from the Russian side, it becomes embedded in our thinking that we are the ones who should de-escalate.”
In real life, Lithuania and other allies would have had sufficient intelligence warnings to avoid this scenario, said Rear Admiral Giedrius Premenkus, chief of Lithuania’s defense staff. Even without the allies, he said, Lithuania’s own armed forces – 17,000 in peacetime and 58,000 after immediate mobilization – would have been able to deal with a limited threat to Marijampol. Russia itself will have to consider the huge stakes involved, he added: “It will be a dilemma for Russia to retain Kaliningrad, and if Russia starts something, NATO will have to say very clearly that if you do that, you will lose Kaliningrad.”
German ground forces commander Lt. Gen. Christian Fryding said on a visit to Lithuania on Wednesday that, while NATO intelligence still assesses that Russia will not be able to take action against alliance members until 2029, Germany and its allies are “ready to fight tonight, no matter what it takes.” He said he would not speculate on how much time Europe has left.
The debate over the urgency of the Russian threat determines the nature of European military planning. Skeptics point to the slow pace of Russian progress in Ukraine, where Putin is stuck a costly war of attritionLosing over one million people. Finnish President Alexander Stubb said in an interview, “Putin has failed in virtually everything he planned to do.” “It hasn’t even tried to get into NATO because it isn’t succeeding in Ukraine. So don’t overestimate Russian capability.”
Lithuania’s Premenekas said that while Russia recruits about 35,000 new troops each month, it loses about 30,000 troops monthly on Ukrainian battlefields, slowing its build-up capacity.
“We are very grateful to the Ukrainians who, every day, are devoting their blood and their losses to better prepare us,” he said. “We are using this time wisely because we know that, if there is a deal in Ukraine, Russia will ramp up its war machine. We do not have the luxury of making Russia feel that we are weak.”
Some European officials and security analysts say that even without the deal the Trump administration is pushing for on Ukraine, Russian forces could immediately free up more than 200,000 battle-hardened troops by holding the line from offensive operations. That’s more troops than Putin plans to use for an initial full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Putin is an opportunist, and if he sees an opportunity, he will toy with it, test responses and try to expand the consequences when he has more capabilities,” Nico Lang, a former senior German defense official who participated in the exercises and a senior fellow at the Munich Security Conference, told Die Welt. “It can happen right now. If the goal is to show that Article 5 of NATO does not work, to divide the Europeans, then you need will, not exceptionally large military capabilities. Why should Putin wait for the Europeans to be ready?”
Russian officials insist that the Kremlin has no intentions of invading the territory of EU or NATO members. Russia had also stressed four years ago that it had no intention of attacking Ukraine.
The Trump administration’s new national defense strategy, released in January, said Russia “remains a persistent but manageable threat” to NATO’s eastern members. However, it also says that Russia is “in no position to bid for European hegemony” because European allies dwarf it in terms of population, economy, and thus latent military power.
This is why Russia would not attempt to wage a war against NATO like it is doing in Ukraine, but there is no reason why it would be stopped altogether. “A long war would be detrimental to Russia because we would make them overproduce and more organized,” said Lieutenant Colonel Amund Osflaten, who teaches land warfare and theory at the Norwegian Defense University College. “So, if they’re going to do something, they might want to do something early, where they put themselves in an advantageous position that they can easily defend later.”
This is exactly what happened in the scenario of Die Welt. Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, who played Putin in the exercise, explained that the smokescreen of “humanitarian” intervention was crucial to enabling the Russian victory. “It was very helpful to keep beating the drum that we need a humanitarian corridor because the evil Lithuanians are blocking us from getting supplies to the poor and hungry people of Kaliningrad.”
European officials say such a mixed strategy, especially at a time when many in the Trump administration openly embrace Putin’s rhetoric, poses an increasing threat to NATO decision-making.
Dutch Defense Minister Brekelmans warned, “There is a gray area, and as Russia takes additional steps, the gray zone is deepening.” “In the end, it is up to the affected NATO allies and the 31 other NATO allies to decide whether the Article 5 line has been crossed. Of course, Russia knows this is not a hard science – and we know it will try to push it further.”
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov yaroslov.trofimov@wsj.com
