Russia warns NATO: Kaliningrad attack means overwhelming response
Russia warned on Saturday that any NATO military action against its Kaliningrad enclave would prompt an immediate and overwhelming response, potentially involving nuclear weapons.
Speaking to RIA Novosti, Nikolai Patrushev, a top aide to President Vladimir Putin and chairman of Russia's Naval Collegium, affirmed that Moscow would employ 'all forces and means at its disposal' to defend Kaliningrad in line with its military doctrine.
'Russia has all the necessary military instruments to guarantee the region's security,' he emphasized.
His comments followed recent remarks by General Christopher Donahoe, commander of US Army forces in Europe and Africa, who revealed that NATO had developed plans to rapidly neutralize Russian defenses in Kaliningrad as part of a broader effort to reinforce deterrence on its eastern border.
NATO countries have been expanding ground capabilities and deepening military-industrial cooperation as part of the alliance's post-Ukraine war strategy to counter Russia, Donahoe outlined earlier this month.
Patrushev accused the West of reviving historical aggression toward Russia, drawing parallels between current NATO policies and those once embraced by Germany's military elites.
'Today's Western strategists are voicing plans that would have been welcomed by the Prussian Junkers and their Nazi descendants—who rightly ended up on the dustbin of history,' he argued. 'I have no doubt that the same fate awaits modern warmongers.'
Kaliningrad, a heavily militarized Russian exclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea, hosts Russia's Baltic Fleet and advanced missile systems. The territory has become a focal point in the growing standoff between Moscow and NATO since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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