Thread by @holger_r

Here's a story we worked on for a year. We analysed 24 RU mil bases behind Baltic and Polish borders and engaged top level military sources to evaluate our findings.

It is a story how the war would play out in case RU would decide to start it. 🧵⬇️
ekspress.delfi.ee/artikkel/12033…

Let’s start with good news. Satellite images provided to us by @planet indicate that equipment and vehicles have largely disappeared from RU bases. Such as here in Luga, just 120 km from EE border with RU.

Or here at the base of the 18th Motorized Rifle Division in Gusev, Kaliningrad.

35 km from EE border in Pskov is the home of the 76th VDV & the 2 spetsnaz brigade. These units would be some of the first to engage in case of war. They would try seize key locations in EE or LV.

Luckily, the units & especially the 76th have been hit hard in UA and have lost a lot of their quality. EE mil int assesses it has 30% of former capacity remaining. This might be described well by the fast expansion of the Pskov military cemetery.

Let’s move back to Luga. The rocket brigade there still has 12 Iskander missile systems at its disposal. With a range of 500 kilometers, these missiles can be used to reach even the Western most reaches of Estonia.
(Pls read our English story for more detailed visualisatons.)

"They could basically start firing at Estonia right from their garages. They wouldn't even have to drive out anywhere and the warning time is very short," said general Veiko-Vello Palm, a recently retired division commander of EE armed forces.

Early warning is one of the toughest challenges for the Baltic states. RU can stockpile ammunition during exercises. Ukraine’s experience showed that deploying 200k troops took RU only 18 days.

In the worst case scenario, EE and LV could wait for 2-3 weeks for allies help to arrive, according to Ben Hodges (@general_ben). “NATO airpower would probably appear immediately. You're not alone, but you won't see a long column of Abrams tanks in the first two weeks."

The most likely scenario wouldn’t be RU trying to fully occupy the Baltic countries. “Their real goal would be to break up NATO: to show that the alliance and its members are not really ready to come to the aid of every country,” Hodges said.

Imagine a scenario where Russian troops enter EE, LV or LT, occupy part of it, and then stop and ask, 'Do you really want to start a nuclear war over this?'

Any type of RU military campaign against the Baltics would lead to a series of dilemmas for NATO’s political leaders. According to Gen Palm, the first mistake would be Western politicians only allowing to hit back at the precise locations from which Russia is striking.

The second mistake would be that the West, fearing escalation, would limit how deep into Russia it would be allowed to attack back. (Have you heard of this problem somewhere already?)

The good news is that both, the EE armed forces and NATO know how to militarily hit back. "All the enemy's military force must be wiped out in the first few days," says Gen Herem. That’s why EE is buying €1.6b worth of weapons & ammunition, incl ATACMS.

The thread is getting long but I’d encourage you to please read our in-depth investigation for much more information and nuances. Here’s the story in English. (Please share it as well if you can.)
ekspress.delfi.ee/artikkel/12033…

I would also like to give a shoutout to our partners in this #EyesOnRussia project. @OsintforUkraine did tremendous work analysing the high-res sat images that we received from @planet.

@FRONTSTORY_PL @VSquare_Project and Lithuanian Public Broadcaster (LRT) worked a lot on the Kaliningrad and Belarus directions. And our project was funded by the IJ4EU grant.

Here's a link to a fascinating story from VSquare about a specialized GRU unit in Kaliningrad. “If we are talking and preparing for day X when Russia decides to attack NATO, then this subversive group will have done its job by day X,” a source told us. vsquare.org/russia-militar…

And here are LRT's texts in both Lithuanian and English
lrt.lt/en/news-in-eng…

lrt.lt/naujienos/lrt-…