Posted on 01/19/2024 2:43:01 PM PST by MeganC
The common defence line agreement was signed to block Russian aggression in the region.
The Baltic States have signed an agreement to create a common defence line to reinforce NATO's eastern border with both Russia and Belarus.
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were once all part of the Soviet Union but are now part of the EU and NATO and are allies of Ukraine, where Russia launched a full-scale invasion in in February 2022.
The countries' defence ministers signed the document in Latvia's capital Riga. The three believe constructing "anti-mobility defensive installations" will significantly strengthen their borders, as well as deter and block any potential military aggression.
"In the light of Russia`s outgoing aggression against Ukraine. It is very important to continue our cooperation. The Baltic states solidarity must be stronger than ever," said Arvydas Anusauskas, minister of Defence of Lithuania.
Analysts at the US Institute of War Studies have pointed out that Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently heightened Kremlin initiatives that might provoke future escalations against the Baltic states.
"Russia's war in Ukraine has shown that in addition to equipment, ammunition, and manpower, physical defensive installations on the border are also needed to defend Estonia from the first meter," Estonia's Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said.
He noted that the purpose of defence installations is to prevent a military conflict in the region.
"We are undertaking this effort so that the people of Estonia can feel safe, but if the slightest risk emerged, we would be ready for various developments more promptly," Pevkur added.
Estonian bunkers along Russian border As part of the 'Baltic Defence line,' Estonia will build hundreds of bunkers on its border with Russia.
Acknowledging that no defence line is impenetrable, Chief of the Operations Department of the General Staff, Tarmo Kundla said the Ukrainian experience has shown the necessity of building shelters from concrete and installing them early, rather than creating them from earth and logs in a war situation.
The concept of defensive installations is based on the decisions made at the NATO Summit in Madrid which emphasised that allies must be ready to defend the territory and new regional defence plans must be developed.
The building process will be carried out in cooperation with local communities and with the agreement of landowners. The price of the Estonian defence facility is initially estimated at €60 million.
The first bunker will be completed in the first half of this year and the public will see it in the second half of the year.
Well, Russia’s been issuing thinly-veiled threats against Poland and the Baltic states for many months now.
The “new” Maginot line.
NATO doesn’t have a border
The Estonian border with Russia is already very defensible terrain because of rivers, lakes, marshes, and very few roads, along that entire frontier.
That defensive advantage is true for potential attacks in both directions.
Which is why the Estonian border is not the strategic threat to Russia that the Ukraine border is.
I guess NATO can’t expand any farther eastward.
As I’ve said many times, the warmongering oligarchs in DC have blundered us into a generational, multi trillion dollar new Cold War arms race. Celebrate! The MIC millionaires that the neocons here stooge for will make billions in profits.
“The ‘new’ Maginot line.”
No; Poland and the Baltics are not stupid enough to erect a static defensive fortification.
Smart move by the Baltics.
putin recently said that russia should have no borders
let
that
in...
It's over, take a pudding cup and get back into your room.
In the 1930s the Czechoslovaks built a fairly extensive network of bunkers near the border with Germany to defend against a potential attack. Sadly, the Munich Agreement of 1938 enabled Hitler to simply annex the territory where most of it was located, in the ethnic German-inhabited Sudetenland, leaving the Czechoslovaks largely defenseless against the invading Wehrmacht.
I wonder how much of this Baltic defense will be located in areas of Latvia and Estonia where majorities of ethnic Russians still live?
Are you hinting the Putin will emulate Hitler and initiate another Sudetenland crisis?🤔
Putin’s invasion has more than doubled its border with NATO countries to about 1600 miles.
Did that open up any other points of favorable border terrain?
“I guess NATO can’t expand any farther eastward.”
The nation of Georgia is a potential NATO member. So is Moldova. Armenia is playing nice with NATO lately and might be in play in the next decade or so.
“I wonder how much of this Baltic defense will be located in areas of Latvia and Estonia where majorities of ethnic Russians still live?”
Latvia rounded up the Russian citizens and Russian loyalists and deported them back to Russia.
The little Hitler in Moscow is whining about it, too.
https://tass.com/politics/1733169
NATO needs to be dissolved shut down and replaced with as many as three (or four) geographically focused defensive alliances. Which we don’t have to be a member of any of them. Some we could just have observer status like Sweden did with NATO.
First Finland, now this
Putin still master strategist
Perhaps, but Moscow and esp Leningrad er ah St. Petersburg are well within “air travel “ range
Also nice location on the NATO sea too
Still “literally” outside wildberry warehouse?
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