The Russian Baltic Sea Fleet announced Saturday the start of «dozens of important exercises» in the Kaliningrad exclave next winter in the midst of the conflict crisis in Ukraine.
These exercises, according to a statement carried by Interfax, will involve «aviation units, air defense forces, tanks and motorized riflemen,» the fleet’s press service said.
These are «large-scale multi-level exercises» in which «the recent reinforcement of the Army Corps with a new motorized rifle division» will take part. The Russian Army reported at the time that the new division was a response to increased NATO activity near Russia’s borders.
The exclave is a particularly sensitive location because, geographically, it lies between Lithuania and Poland, countries that are collaborating with Ukraine in the war.
In fact, just this week the Polish authorities had stressed the need to erect a fence «due to the existing threat from the Kaliningrad area», after accusing Russia of preparing, together with Belarus, an «artificial migration wave» in retaliation for its support to Kiev, as denounced at the time by the Polish Minister of Defense, Mariusz Blaszczak.
