Russland & Verbündete gegen Europa & USA

[Old Boy]

Bloomberg schreibt heute einen länglichen Beitrag darüber, wie ein russischer Angriff auf Europa, und speziell das Baltikum, aussehen könnte:

A Putin War With NATO Would Cost the World $1.5 Trillion

By
Bloomberg Economics
and
Bloomberg News

The Big Take
June 24, 2025


European officials tracking the ramp up of Vladimir Putin’s military are wrestling with a threat that would have been scarcely plausible a few years ago: war with Russia.
Russia is churning out artillery shells, drones and missiles at a rate that will soon surpass the needs of its troops in Ukraine. The US and Israel’s attack on Iran, a Kremlin ally, has dealt another blow to global stability. And Putin is sounding emboldened.

As he signals de-escalation following Tehran’s limited retaliation, Trump is expected to reaffirm the US commitment to NATO’s mutual-defense clause at a summit in The Hague beginning Tuesday, at least according to a draft statement from NATO allies ahead of the meeting. Trump administration officials have also said repeatedly that they’d defend every inch of its territory.

But regardless of what Trump says, European leaders aren’t convinced they can bank on his commitments — at the Group of Seven summit in Canada this month, he asked why Russia wasn’t attending.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-...age-europe

A war on NATO territory remains unlikely — not least because Russia doesn’t, for now, have the capacity and probably would not want a war on two fronts. But some Russian generals and senior officials have said publicly that their imperial ambitions don’t end with Ukraine and Putin himself laid claim to at least the whole of Ukraine last week.

“I consider Russians and Ukrainians as one people, and in this sense all of Ukraine is ours,” Putin said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “We have a saying, or parable — wherever the Russian soldier treads is ours.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte suggested that Russia may be in a position to consider such an attack on the alliance within five years, echoing the assessments of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and several European intelligence agencies. The warnings come as NATO — under pressure from Trump — pushes members to raise defense spending to the highest levels in decades.

Denmark has said Russia could engage in a local war with a neighboring country within six months and pose a credible threat to one or more NATO countries within two years.

https://archive.is/Iduii#selection-1345.0-1365.395

In such a scenario, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on NATO’s northeastern flank would be the most likely flashpoint. The three Baltic nations make up a small fraction of the European economy but strategically, they are critical.

As the only NATO members once directly administered by the Soviet Union, and the home to substantial Russian minority populations, they have a special place in Putin’s distorted historical imagination. They also have long borders with Russia and its satellite, Belarus. Any attack would quickly become a test of US willingness to defend NATO allies against Russia, the cornerstone on which the western alliance was built.
A war, even in its initial phase, would see many people killed and likely trigger a flood of refugees. It would also exact a heavy economic toll.

Bloomberg Economics estimates that the direct cost of destruction in the warzone, higher energy prices as supply from Russia is cut off, and a selloff in financial markets could cut global output by 1.3% or $1.5 trillion in the first year, almost as much as the impact of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The losses would be much greater if the conflict spilled into other European countries.

Man kann sich das Ganze mal durchlesen, aber für meinen Geschmack fehlen einige wichtige Faktoren. Skandinavien ist jetzt praktisch geschlossen in der NATO und wird ein Wörtchen mitreden wollen, ebenso wird die Ukraine nur am Rande erwähnt. NATO-Truppen im Baltikum sind anscheinend kein nennenswerter Faktor.

In the light of Russia’s ongoing threat, all three of the Baltic states are already in the process of withdrawing from an international agreement against landmines so that they can be potentially deployed to bolster their defenses. NATO members are planning to ramp up air defenses along the eastern flank.

Of course, as European governments try to persuade their voters to accept massive increases in defense spending, fears of Russian aggression can only help their case. But Russia, for its part, has upgraded its nuclear-weapons base in Kaliningrad, the exclave between Poland and Lithuania, as well as adding bases and military infrastructure along its northwest border with NATO.

Des weiteren wird davon ausgegangen, daß Rußland für die nächsten 5 Jahre munter so weitermachen kann wie bisher, ohne wirtschaftlichen oder gesellschaftlichen Kollaps.

How An Invasion Might Unfold
An invasion could begin with a staged incident or a hybrid attack of some sort. The Moscow-Kalingingrad rail line, which passes through Vilnius without stopping, is one point of vulnerability — Lithuania police were this month hunting a Russian man who jumped from a moving train as it passed through their territory.

Lithuania’s former foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, has suggested that as a first step Russia could fabricate an excuse for the Moscow-Kaliningrad train to stop inside Lithuania.

Moscow could then send in troops under the guise of protecting stranded Russian citizens, effectively invading Lithuania. It could also launch attacks on Estonia and Latvia, deploy its navy to take control of the Baltic Sea and key islands in it, and sever Baltic states’ land connection with Poland at the Suwalki corridor.

Und damit sind wir scheinbar offiziell im Sommerloch angekommen.