Military expert: Russian snap military drills could turn into assaults on Baltic capitals
JEREMY BENDER
BusinessInsider.com
Feb. 23,2015
The Baltic states are becoming increasingly unnerved by the growing number of Russian military drills close to their borders, Damien Sharkov of Newsweek reports,
Since the start of the Ukrainian crisis, Russia has been staging military drills close to the Baltic regions at an increasingly common pace.
Martin Hurt, the deputy director of Estonia’s International Centre for Defense and Security, believes that the increased frequency of the drills is meant to lull Europe into a false sense of security as the exercises become increasingly normal.
“My take would be that the Russian authorities want to raise the readiness of their forces and also make European nations more relaxed to a new norm where the Russian Air Force often conduct snap exercises,” Hurt told Newsweek.
“A realistic scenario against the Baltics would be a ‘normal’ Russian snap exercise that without notice turns into a quick assault on one or several of the Baltic states’ capitals,” Hurt continued. “Such an attack would have greater probability of success than the hybrid scenario we saw in Crimea.”
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