Ein Kriegsspiel zeigt, wie anfällig Europa für einen russischen Angriff ist

MARIJAMPOLE, Lithuania—European governments are preparing for war with Russia. A newly released wargame suggests they aren’t ready.

A Russian incursion, or outright invasion, into countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union has become more likely because of Europe’s tensions with President Trump over Greenland, Ukraine, trade and other matters, many European security and political leaders say.

They point out that Russia has switched to a war economy, focusing national resources on a rearmament program and military recruitment that goes well beyond the needs of the campaign in Ukraine.

The key question is: How soon? The earlier belief in Berlin and other capitals was that Russia wouldn’t be able to threaten NATO until 2029 or so. There is now a growing consensus that such a crisis could come much sooner—before Europe, which is expanding its own investment in defense, is in a position to fight back.

“Our assessment is that Russia will be able to move large amounts of troops within one year,” the Netherlands Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said in an interview. “We see that they are already increasing their strategic inventories, and are expanding their presence and assets along the NATO borders.”

President Vladimir Putin wants to resurrect the glories of the Russian Empire, making countries that were once part of it, such as the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, obvious targets. All of them have been members of the EU and NATO for two decades.

“Anxiety is very visible in my country, but at the same time, we are preparing to defend ourselves,” said Deividas Matulionis, Lithuania’s national security adviser. While Lithuania expects the U.S. and other NATO allies to assist in case of a Russian incursion, he added, the country’s own troops shouldn’t be underestimated: “They will be fighting, definitely, even before the reinforcements come.”

NATO military planners also worry about potential Russian designs on Swedish, Finnish and Danish islands in the Baltic Sea, parts of Poland, and the Norwegian and Finnish far north, as well as a campaign of strikes on European strategic infrastructure as far west as the Dutch port of Rotterdam.

The exercise simulating a Russian incursion into Lithuania, organized in December by Germany’s Die Welt newspaper together with the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces, became an object of heated conversation within Europe’s security establishment even before the newspaper published its results on Thursday. The exercise involved 16 former senior German and NATO officials, lawmakers and prominent security experts role-playing a scenario set in October 2026.

In the exercise, Russia used the pretext of a humanitarian crisis in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to seize the Lithuanian city of Marijampole, a key crossroads in the narrow gap between Russia and Belarus. Russian portrayals of the invasion as a humanitarian mission were sufficient for the U.S. to decline invoking NATO’s Article 5 that calls for allied assistance. Germany proved indecisive, and Poland, while mobilizing, didn’t send troops across the border into Lithuania. The German brigade already deployed to Lithuania failed to intervene, in part because Russia used drones to lay mines on roads leading out of its base.

“Deterrence depends not only on capabilities, but on what the enemy believes about our will, and in the wargame my ‘Russian colleagues’ and I knew: Germany will hesitate. And this was enough to win,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military analyst who played the Russian chief of general staff.

A town of some 35,000 people, Marijampole is home to one of Europe’s most strategic highway intersections. Running southwest is the Via Baltica superhighway to Poland, clogged with trucks from all over the EU and Ukraine. Running west is the transit road between Belarus and Kaliningrad that Lithuania must, under a treaty, maintain open to Russian traffic. This week, it was busy with Russian trucks, mostly stripped of markings on their containers, that, just before the border, drove past a tower with the Ukrainian and Lithuanian flags and the motto “Together to Victory.”

In the wargame, absent American leadership, Russia managed within a couple of days to destroy the credibility of NATO and establish domination over the Baltics, by deploying an initial force of only some 15,000 troops.

“The Russians achieved most of their goals without moving many of their own units,” said Bartłomiej Kot, a Polish security analyst who played the Polish prime minister in the exercise. “What this showed to me is that once we are confronted by the escalatory narrative from the Russian side, we have it embedded in our thinking that we are the ones who should be de-escalating.”

In real life, Lithuania and other allies would have had enough intelligence warnings to avoid this scenario, said Rear Adm. Giedrius Premeneckas, Lithuania’s chief of defense staff. Even without allies, Lithuania’s own armed forces—17,000 in peacetime and 58,000 after an immediate mobilization—would have been able to deal with a limited threat to Marijampole, he said. Russia itself would have to consider the high stakes involved, he added: “It would be a dilemma for Russia to sustain Kaliningrad, and if Russia starts something, it must be said very clearly by NATO that if you do, you will lose Kaliningrad.”

This sounds very much like the first mission in the campaign of Broken Arrow

>Germany proved indecisive, and Poland, while mobilizing, didn’t send troops across the border into Lithuania. The German brigade already deployed to Lithuania failed to intervene, in part because Russia used drones to lay mines on roads leading out of its base.

This almost sounds comical and frankly just not that serious. It’s a wargame so I’d be interested who in this game decides that Germany is going to be indecisive, who decides Poland doesn’t intervene and by which criteria? And who decides German forces just sit it out because some roads are blocked? It sounds more like a worst possible outcome instead of a plausible one.

The war game is kislev vs empire right?

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Wargame are the way military brass can send messages to higher politicians…

IMO, Russia will do nothing before pro Russian governments win elections in various EU countries.

Once there, it will be much easier for Putin to link Kaliningrad to the mainland.

Longer term what he wants is mostly reset of energy dependence, so more gas turbines all over Europe will do the trick.