Second World War fortifications are again being used by Ukraine as it faces off against Russian aggression. Eyeing the fight next door, Lithuania is now also looking to bolster its border with trenches, barriers, and minefields.
When Russian troops poured across the Ukrainian border in February 2022, defenders rushed to World War Two-era defences built in the 1930s north of Kyiv.
As one Ukrainian soldier summarised in a July 2023 New York Times article, the Russians had attacked the entrenched lines they had built themselves almost a century ago.
“Generals always prepare to fight the last war,” Vasyl Pavlov, an adviser to Ukraine’s general headquarters, told reporters. “But the Russian generals didn’t even prepare to fight the last war.”
Similarly in Lithuania, the fields on the country’s border with Russia’s Kaliningrad are dotted with World War Two-era bunkers. They were built piecemeal by the Soviets just months before the Nazis launched their ill-fated invasion of the USSR.
The so-called Molotov line stretched from the Baltic to the Black Seas, constructed by the Red Army in preparation for war with Nazi Germany, its former ally.
Around 300 out of the planned several thousand bunkers were built in Lithuania alone. However, the Soviets did not have enough time to install equipment and weapons inside them, thus the bunkers became easy targets for the Wehrmacht as the Nazis isolated and destroyed the outposts.
“Lithuania would have been a defender's dream had the fortifications been built in time,” said Kęstutis Jankus, a historian who has spent years studying the Molotov line together with a Polish group of researchers, Grupa Badawcza Kriepost.
“Four entrenched regions from northwest to southeast – Telšiai region had the Baltic Sea on one side, Minijos and Šalpės rivers on the other, from there the landscape is steep, with riverbeds having 20 to 30-metre cliffs,” he said. “Alytus region is squeezed between lakes, having perfect conditions for defence. The line simply wasn’t built in time.”
The bunkers are now abandoned, belonging to whoever owns the land under them. Many have been turned into storage spaces, or worse – landfill sites or improvised toilets.
Many of the bunkers are found in the Suwalki Gap, a 70-kilometre stretch of land in Lithuania that connects the Baltic states with Poland. It is flanked on one side by Russia’s Kaliningrad and Belarus on the other.
Moscow and Minsk officials routinely threaten to seize or otherwise cut off the gap. Both NATO and Russian commanders are actively preparing for operations in the area. Recently, Lithuania held drills with Poland to test the classified plans to defend the stretch.
With some investment, according to Jankus, the derelict bunkers could become used if not as fighting positions, then at least as shelters for the civilians – much like in Kyiv during Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“But the resources needed to build them are very big. It is also only useful if the defences are built in scale, there is no sense when they are isolated,” he said. “It’s also a question if we have resources for it.”
“Of course, warfare in 1941 was different from 2024,” he added.
Saving lives
After botching the initial invasion push, Russia has constructed multi-layered defensive lines in southern Ukraine, complete with a myriad of trench networks, so-called dragon’s teeth anti-tank barriers and firing points. They were ultimately successful in halting Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the summer of last year.
The Ukrainians are now doing the same, ripping apart their farmlands in the north, east, and south of the country in preparation for Russia’s further attacks.
But many in Ukraine were shocked when Russians again were able to flood across the border in Kharkiv in spring this year. Images showed anti-tank emplacements sitting idly by the side of the road, not yet placed in position.
Despite the wartime censorship, testimonies have appeared in Ukrainian and international press from soldiers who claimed that the pre-planned trenches, minefields and fortifications - promised by the Ukrainian leadership - failed to appear in time.
As a result, hundreds were killed defending unfortified flatlands from Russia’s firepower. In one example, Ukraine’s 67th brigade was disbanded after suffering heavy losses defending the ill-prepared lines that crumbled under Russian bombardment.
Since then, Kyiv has opened several investigations into the possible corruption and mismanagement in constructing the defences worth millions of euros.
Multi-million investment
Lithuania’s current defence minister, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, took up his post earlier this year after promising to break the deadlock in Lithuania’s seemingly lacklustre approach in adopting Ukraine’s lessons, namely drone warfare, society-wide defence and fortifications.
As the head of the parliamentary defence committee, he advocated fortifying the border, which was initially rejected by the then defence minister and head of the military. A compromise option was subsequently agreed, which involved stockpiling anti-tank barriers and other fortifications in “counter-mobility parks”. They would only be put in place when an armed conflict would seem unavoidable.
The measures are part of the new Baltic defence line agreed by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania earlier this year. Poland also announced its 2.4-billion-euro plan, codenamed East Shield, to fortify its border with Kaliningrad and Russia’s ally Belarus.
In comparison, Lithuania plans to allocate 17.5 million euros over the next three years to acquire fortifications. The total cost is estimated to stand at 600 million euros, with the Baltic states and Poland turning to Brussels to help fund the bill.
The Lithuanian government also plans to construct what it called reserve barriers on important roads, as well as prepare bridges for easy demolition. By 2027, the country also hopes to plant trees for cover on important stretches of roads, as well as restore roadside ditches that can act as trenches or anti-tank barriers.
Lithuania has also decided to withdraw from a treaty banning cluster munitions and has signalled it would acquire mines for its border defences.
Lithuania’s fortifications will include barriers like the so-called “Dragon’s teeth”, which will be concentrated in 27 parks across the country, Kasčiūnas told LRT TV last month.
"If intelligence indicates that there is a threat along some artery, then they can be moved there quickly to block the road and cover it with fire means,” he said, adding that the fortifications would also be coupled with minefields.
"Not only will we create bases where to base the fortifications, but we will fortify some areas permanently and immediately at the end of the summer," he said. "For example, there is a bridge that is not in use, but an enemy could potentially drive over it, so we will fortify it.”
Meanwhile, Estonia has indicated it would build bunkers in key locations and Latvia has also started digging anti-tank ditches and stockpiling mines.
“Latvians are [planning] similarly, Estonians also have their own conception, while the Poles - with whom we are coordinating our actions – are doing an even bigger transformation at the border,” Kasčiūnas said. “We are all coordinating and in a year, maybe sooner, we will have a more defensible border.”
Announcing the fortification plan on Monday, Kasčiūnas said the barriers are already being constructed and are due to be taken to the so-called parks.
Kasčiūnas also said Lithuania will start in September permanently fortifying stretches of the border, without disclosing more details. According to the Interior Ministry, Lithuania is also seeking EU funding for a so-called "drone wall", which would allow continuous monitoring of the border from the air.
Further reading
Buying time
Rimas Armaitis, a Lithuanian sapper, has fought in Ukraine for more than two years. During his service, he helped mine and clear positions and saw first-hand the importance of fortifications.
In his outspoken social media posts, Armaitis has often criticised Lithuania’s approach to military planning, which he claims relies too much on allied support and assumptions of large-scale manoeuvre warfare, different from the war of attrition in Ukraine.
Lithuania’s outgoing defence chief, Valdemaras Rupšys, previously told LRT.lt that fortifications are useless if there are no means to cover them with artillery or other weapons. He also reflected the view held among many in the Lithuanian military that a potential fight between Russia and NATO in Lithuania would look very different from Ukraine. Meanwhile, Armaitis has himself come under criticism for supposedly not taking the NATO and Baltic context into account.
But regardless of how a NATO battlefield would look like, fortifications, coupled with firepower and air defence, can help stall any Russian advance – as the fights in Ukraine have shown, according to Armaitis.
“At least the main roads should be covered [with fortificaitons],” Armaitis told LRT.lt in Vilnius. “I’m not saying they should be built along [the whole border], because you would also have to purchase land from people”, but key arteries and strategic locations should be prepared, he added.
“I also don’t see the point of building minefields. Information about a looming war would come in advance and building minefields can be done very fast if you have mines and well-prepared specialists,” he said.
According to Armaitis, he is now being approached with various fortification designs by different entrepreneurs and companies that are eyeing the lucrative military contracts due to be handed out in the near future.
“The Poles are trying to certify those who are offering something, because there are many companies which are planning to build [fortifications]. They plan on checking the stopping power – by firing from tanks, IFVs, etc.,” he said.
Ukrainians are now constructing elaborate defensive lines around Kyiv, which are covered in overgrowth to hide their locations. Although it would be impossible in Lithuania to fully conceal fortifications, prepared defensive lines would still help save lives.
“You will hold your positions, maybe NATO will get here in time, it will not be like when the Russians reached Kyiv in several days,” he said. “And why were they able to do that? It’s because there was nothing built to stop them, no one expected that they would come. And now we are also thinking the same."
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
