The latter claim best illustrates the hypocrisy of the U.S. today. The "bounty" claim was premised on a single attack that left three U.S. servicemen dead. The U.S. today openly brags about killing hundreds of Russians in Ukraine.
Red Lines
Russia's red lines in Ukraine have evolved to encompass two basic principles - no direct military intervention by NATO forces on Ukrainian soil/airspace, and no attack against Russia proper.
Even here, Russia has displayed great patience, tolerating the presence of U.S. special operations forces in Ukraine, and holding back when Ukrainian forces, most likely supported by NATO-provided intelligence, engage in limited attacks on targets inside Russia.
Rather than respond by attacking the "decision making centers" outside Ukraine responsible for supporting these actions, Russia has engaged in a graduated campaign of escalation inside Ukraine, striking the very weapons being delivered under the oversight of U.S. commandos and the Ukrainian forces who use them.
It is in this context that the Lithuanian decision to impose a rail blockade on Russia seems to be a stark departure from current NATO and E.U. policy.
Russia immediately made its ire known, indicating that it viewed the Lithuanian actions as an overt act of war which, if not reversed, would result in "practical" measures outside the realm of diplomacy to rectify the situation.
The rhetoric was ratcheted up to high, however, when Andrey Klimov, a Russian senator who chairs the Commission for the Defense of State Sovereignty, called the Lithuanian action "an act of aggression", which would result in Russia seeking to "solve the problem of the Kaliningrad transit created by Lithuania by ANY means chosen by us."
The Suwalki Gap
For years, NATO has worried about the possibility of a war with Russia in the Baltics. Much of NATO's attention has been focused on defending the "Suwalki Gap,", a 60-mile-long stretch of border between Poland and Lithuania that separates Belarus from Kaliningrad. Western military experts have long speculated that, in the event of any conflict between Russia and NATO, Russian forces would seek to advance on the Suwalki Gap, joining Kaliningrad with Belarus and severing the three Baltic nations from the rest of Europe.
But while NATO has focused on defending the Sulwaki Gap, a Russian lawmaker has suggested that any Russian military attack in the Baltics would avoid involving Belarus. Instead, it would focus on securing a land bridge between Kaliningrad and Russia by driving north, along the Baltic coastline, to Saint Petersburg.
A series of war games conducted by RAND around 2014 showed that NATO was, at the time, not able to adequately defend the Baltics from a concerted Russian attack. According to the war game results, Russian forces were able to overrun the Baltics in about 60 hours.
Similar projections of Russian offensive prowess against Ukraine, where some military officials, including U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Miley, predicted that Russian forces would take Kiev within 72 hours, proved wrong. But the reality is that the militaries of the three Baltic nations are not on par with those of Ukraine, either in quality or quantity, and there is little doubt Russia, even distracted in Ukraine, could deliver a fatal blow to the militaries of the three Baltic nations.
Escalating Rhetoric
The rhetoric out of Russia continues to escalate. Vladimir Dzhabarov, a deputy head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the lower house of Russia's Parliament, has threatened that any continued blockade of Kaliningrad could lead to an armed conflict, noting that "the Russian state must protect its territory and ensure its security. If we see that a threat to our security that is fraught with a loss of territory, we will certainly take extreme measures and nothing will stop us."
If there is one take away from the Russian military operation in Ukraine, it is that Russia doesn't bluff. NATO and the rest of Europe can rest assured that unless a solution is found that brings an end to Lithuania's blockade of Kaliningrad, there will be a war between NATO and Russia.
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