Russia could attempt to link up with its Kaliningrad exclave through the Suwalki corridor using drone-centric warfare rather than a conventional ground invasion, Polish strategic analyst Piotr Kulpa said. The scenario exploits Russia's "incredible superiority" in drone warfare - capabilities that Finland, the Baltic states, and Poland are not prepared to counter.
In an interview with "Hvylya", Kulpa and journalist Yuriy Romanenko discussed the operational details. Romanenko noted that any ground operation would require Russia to amass 20,000 to 50,000 troops near the corridor - a buildup easily detectable by satellite. Kulpa agreed, but shifted the focus to a different kind of threat: "It all starts with drone-centric warfare - strikes come in. And God knows whether they are Russian or Belarusian."
Poland, the most capable military player on the eastern flank, could only respond with artillery at a range of 40 to 50 kilometers, Kulpa said. "You can't do anything more than that." He added that Poland could technically "level Kaliningrad" but questioned whether it would actually do so in a scenario deliberately designed to stay below the threshold of NATO's Article 5, creating ambiguity about whether a collective response is warranted.
The discussion turned to Ukraine's potential role. If Russia attacked through Belarusian territory, Ukraine would have ideal conditions to strike back - effectively becoming NATO's most capable military partner. Kulpa acknowledged this would transform the strategic landscape, but stressed that European NATO members currently lack both the drones and the trained personnel to fight this kind of war. "The skills the Ukrainian army possesses are an abstraction for the armies" of NATO allies, he said.
Romanenko pointed to a parallel with the Persian Gulf, where Iranian drone strikes on Qatari LNG facilities and Emirati infrastructure caught regional powers completely off guard despite years of warning. "A Qatari company that supplies twenty percent of liquefied gas has now shut down its major plant because some small drones arrived - they were totally unprepared," he said.
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