While they face each other indirectly in the Ukrainian War, in which Kiev sustains much of its effort against the invasion of Moscow with weapons supplied by the West, Russia and NATO provoke each other in the dangerous waters of the Baltic Sea.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that on Thursday (9), its Baltic Sea Fleet began a military exercise to defend sea routes and land bases in the territory of Kaliningrad, the westernmost part of Russia, taken from Nazi Germany in World War II. world.
60 ships and 40 planes were mobilized as the western military alliance conducts its largest annual naval exercise in the region, with 45 vessels and 75 aircraft. The Baltops, as the Western action is called, has been held every year since 1972, but the war has changed its configuration.
First, it centers on Sweden, which with Finland has applied for membership in the 30-member US-led military club to counter the perceived Russian threat to the east. Vladimir Putin’s government protested and made more or less veiled threats, but appears to have already resigned.
Accession is uncertain, given that Turkey, which as a NATO member has the right to veto the request, has placed political obstacles to the idea.
To emphasize the symbolic character of the Baltops, the US sent its Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, to Stockholm aboard the USS Kearsage at the end of last week. The gigantic amphibious landing ship, 257 meters long (compared to 333 meters for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier), was the largest ship to dock in the Swedish capital in history.
The Baltops maneuvers began on Sunday (5th) and will last until the 17th. The Russians did not announce the duration of their exercises, but they had not been announced, thus revealing their character of political response.
For the Swedes and Finns, who participate as guests from 12 NATO countries at Baltops, this is a reality. If admission to NATO can mean an insurance that Ukraine did not have, given that an attack on one member of the alliance is as a rule answered jointly by all the others, it also shows accentuated dangers in its strategic surroundings.
Both Nordic countries preached military neutrality, although they worked in harmony with NATO and, especially in the case of Stockholm, had an active defense posture. In recent years, the Swedes have strengthened the defenses of the strategic island of Gotland, seen as an obvious target for the Russians in the event of a confrontation in northern Europe.
Since the beginning of the war on February 24, there have been at least two Russian incursions into Swedish airspace. With the maneuvers in response to the Baltops comes the certainty of the perceived change in status of the then-neutral Nordics in Moscow.
To complicate matters, competing military exercises, as well as more aggressive air patrols, carry the inherent risk of miscalculation or accidental confrontation. Throughout the Cold War, there have been numerous episodes of the genre, most notably in 1983, when a NATO simulation was seen as the prelude to a real conflict in Moscow and nearly led to a nuclear strike.
The Baltic is one of the main fields of strategic friction between Russia, which has its outlet to the Atlantic in the region, and the West. The danger of errors is real, as occurred in the Far East in May on two occasions, when Chinese fighter jets dangerously followed patrol planes from Australia and Canada, almost causing accidents such as the collision between a fighter plane and a spy plane. American in 2001.
