NATO's surprise military maneuver raises alarm in Russia

Around 25 aircraft were mobilized, according to what was possible to monitor on air traffic monitoring websites, throughout Tuesday (18). The fleet included US and Norwegian fighter planes and a variety of surveillance and aerial refueling aircraft from several NATO countries.

Attention was drawn to the presence of American AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, a weapon for raids against coastal targets that was widely used against Iranian positions in the Strait of Hormuz throughout the current war in the Middle East.

To the Ukrainian website Militarnii, NATO reported that the action was intended to train defensive operational capabilities in the region, but did not comment on the fact that it was not previously announced. This is standard practice in major exercises in any conflict area in the world, aiming to avoid incorrect identification of attacks and even aircraft collisions in the air.

The lack of warning sparked concern in Moscow. According to a person close to the Ministry of Defense interviewed by Folha, the perception is that NATO was testing Russian electronic interception capabilities based in Kaliningrad.

The exclave is known to host communications systems that often interfere with the guidance capabilities of planes across the Baltic region. In addition, S-400 long-range anti-aircraft systems and Iskander-M ballistic missiles are operated from there, as well as coastal models.

The Iskander, in use in Ukraine, can hit cities close to Berlin with nuclear warheads from there. The US has already revealed plans to take Kaliningrad.

The episode raises yet another level the already exacerbated tension in the Baltic, where NATO sees three members, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as vulnerable to Russian attacks. Lithuanians have even changed the law to allow nuclear weapons to be placed on their soil.

The perception was acute after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which led to two neighboring Nordic states, Sweden and Finland, to abandon historical neutrality and join NATO. As a result, all the banks of the Baltic, with the obvious exception of Russia, are now part of the alliance's borders.

The episodes in the region follow one another. At sea, French planes have already been targeted by Russian radars, a patrol installed by NATO seeks to prevent actions against submarine cables and the Moscow Nord Stream oil pipeline system was blown up in 2022.

On land, airspace violations by drones coming from the Ukrainian conflict area sometimes point to deliberate actions, sometimes to accidental occurrences. The Russians deny this intention and say they fear attacks using rival drones smuggled into the Baltic States.

The distrust is such that the transit through the region of a Russian frigate equipped with hypersonic missiles, the Admiral Kasatonov, generated headlines in Germany and the United Kingdom this week, which warned of the risk of attacks.

It wasn't meant to be, but the context is one of belligerence: Admiral Kasatonov escorted a ship carrying Russian gas through the region, aiming to dissuade any European attempts to board the vessel, as has happened before with ships under economic sanctions.

This week, Putin said Russia would apply the same rule to European ships if they approach, raising fears of a naval conflict in the Baltic.

NATO has been warning of the possibility of a confrontation with the Russians before the end of the decade, a concern shared even by members of the elite in Moscow, aware that the quagmire in Ukraine exacts a high political price from Putin.

As a result, the continent has been leading a major expansion of its military spending, even to try to circumvent the distancing promoted by Donald Trump, who accuses his partners of depending on the USA. All this is called Russophobia by the Kremlin.

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