How long will Kaliningrad remain quiet?

[EndlessWire]

Russia has considerable military assets stashed in Kaliningrad. An eye has to be kept on what that area is doing. They are being held in reserve for what?

[ginny skinny]

1. Explanation of Kaliningrad.

Territory of Russia, separate from the rest of the country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad

https://www.businessinsider.com/poland-worried-over-ukraine-kaliningrad-2014-3

[Stinky The Clown]

2. I have always thought we should be "patroling" that stretch of ocean to keep an eye on shit

Heavy patrols.

Blockade-level patrols. Shadow any ship that leaves. No interdiction. Just watch them like the Soviet trawlers used to do to us on our East Coast.

In my Navy days I was twice on ships shadowed by trawlers. They got VERY close. Close enough to send stuff over by ship to ship transfer if we wanted to. Close enough to see faces of their sailors. There were no consequences then and there will be none now.

edit to add:

Have Poland and Lithuania make the land link back to Belarus impossible. Help them with our troops if need be.

[pecosbob]

3. The old port of Konigsberg is in pretty rough shape these days due to lack of Russian investment

So is their surface fleet. What's alarming is reports of nuke Iskander and Tochka missiles stored there.

[EndlessWire]

5. I don't know anything about the port

but, I do know that they have a lot of missiles up there, and a whole heckuva lot of military personnel. If we were to win a world war, I would not like to see Russia carved up, but I would like Kaliningrad to be dismantled. I think they threaten Denmark and Sweden.

[pecosbob]

6. Here a bit of fairly recent information

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/russia-fortifying-kaliningrad-nato-can-destroy-it-anyway-199168

The Pentagon has a plan for destroying the defenses of Russia’s most heavily-armed European outpost, a top U.S. commander said in September 2019.

The Russians know full well that any kind of missile launch over Polish or Lithuanian airspace would bring an immediate response from NATO.

[Gore1FL]

4. The flew (possibly nuclear-armed) planes from there to harass Swedish airspace over Gotland.

They haven't been all that quiet.

[EndlessWire]

7. I read that

they always did fly four planes into Swedish air space; it was not new, except that perhaps they did fly two nuclear planes there right after Sweden said it might like to join NATO. But I read that they have done that in the past, before the current war, around Gotland. I don't know the launch point.

That was the reason that Sweden beefed up its military there. All before the war. One time the Russians were able to fly four planes into their air space without much of any reaction at all. After that, Sweden took care to make sure that Russia couldn't do that without a scramble.

I know that Sweden is not currently NATO. My point I tried to make in a previous response to a post is that the word "assurances" does not guarantee NATO protection. It was told to me that Sweden has agreements and such for protection from NATO countries and/or good friends that will back them up. This is great; but, Ukraine also had "assurances" that turned out not to be worth anything, after they gave up their nukes.

So, I worry about Sweden. I still think that Sweden is not Ukraine, and that NATO absolutely will not tolerate Russia shooting up Sweden (or Finland.) But, the details are in the semantics, apparently, and you never know what would transpire. I certainly think that Sweden has its stuff together, and has been consolidating and renewing previous agreements. They need to apply to NATO, IMO. What is holding them back? Money? Involvement?