Lithuanian colonel outlines scenarios for Russian aggression against Baltic States
Against the backdrop of threats from Russia to the Baltic states over allegations that they provided airspace for Ukrainian strikes on Russian ports, Colonel Linas Idzelis outlined four possible scenarios for Russian aggression in the region.
He spoke about this in an interview with Ukrinform.
“When the Soviet Union collapsed, in Lithuania, we exercised four scenarios of how Russia might overpower the Baltic States, maybe in conjunction with the Belarus forces, because in the case of Russia’s war against NATO, Belarus wouldn’t be able to stay aside. It would have to be involved in some way,” Idzelis noted.
He explained that the first scenario is a hybrid war, similar to the events of 2014, when militants in unmarked uniforms, supported by the Russian GRU and special forces, were involved.
“But that incursion had been preceded by a huge information campaign and cyber attacks. So the invasion was just a continuation of those initial hybrid actions,” the colonel explained, adding that Ukraine has learned many lessons since then and that the West is now also prepared for such a scenario.
According to him, many senior military officers and colonels in Lithuania understood this scenario because they had once studied it in Russian textbooks.
“And in Russian books, the invasion is just the last phase, before which you have done your homework... Russians always do that, and now with Telegram and other tools, it’s easy for them to hire someone for a few hundred euros to smuggle something, to set a factory on fire, or vandalize a monument,” Idzelis stated.
In his view, Russia is already waging a hybrid war against all of Europe, a fact that, in his opinion, European governments are well aware of.
The second scenario that Lithuanian officers studied during the exercises was “the change of the local population’s mindset through the reflection control operations.”
“The endgame for this scenario is ensuring that when the tanks roll in, they are met with flowers, not grenade launchers,” he explained.
The third scenario is an energy blockade, Idzelis said, noting that Lithuania has done everything possible to end its energy dependence on Russia.
Also, he noted that some European countries “are so dependent on Russian hydrocarbons that it’s easy for Moscow to conduct influence operations and blackmail governments.”
“The fourth scenario is a heist attack. For example, a few thousand Russian military servicemen wearing civilian clothes, driving civilian vehicles during the night, penetrated Lithuania’s border. That would be accompanied by some 400 Shaheds, cruise and ballistic missiles flying in at five o'clock in the morning,” Idzelis claimed.
He believes that the latter option poses the greatest danger, since, in his view, European countries are not prepared to defend against so many aerial targets.
After a significant airstrike, there would likely be a simultaneous airborne operation followed by a conventional ground assault involving tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs). The colonel believes that under these circumstances, the Russian army would proceed with greater caution.
“Purely from a military standpoint, the invasion involving less than 200,000 troops along multiple advance avenues was madness, but still, the Russians went for it, which turned out to be a big mistake,” he emphasized.
The colonel also recalled that Russia underestimated Ukraine’s resistance in the early days of the full-scale invasion due to flawed intelligence.
“ We also know that this was due to the fact that the huge amount of money spent on influence operations in Ukraine as part of preparations for the invasion was simply stolen by their puppets in the country,” Idzelis said.
As reported by Ukrinform, Colonel Linas Idzelis, head of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, believes that the European Union should more actively support Ukraine, as allowing Russia to prevail on the battlefield could lead to a subsequent attack on European countries with the forced mobilization of Ukrainian resources.
Photo: LRU