Russia is enlisting the help of thousands of North Koreans on its bleeding front in Ukraine, while satellite images of Russian military bases in Kaliningrad and on the Estonian and Latvian borders show they have been emptied of not just military personnel but also of heavy equipment. However, data gathered by investigative journalists suggest that the Russian bases are only empty temporarily and special units in Kaliningrad are organising sabotage operations in Lithuania, the other Baltic states, and Poland.
Amidst warnings that it is only a matter of time before Russia attacks NATO, a group of international journalists analysed the entire Russian military presence around the Baltic states and Poland, looking into how it has been affected by Moscow’s three-year-long war against Ukraine and how long it would take before Russia can fill up its ground troop bases that are currently empty even in the fully militarised Kaliningrad Oblast.
We worked on the military bases in the Kaliningrad Oblast and Belarus together with our colleagues from the Polish investigative journalism centres Frontstory.pl and V-Square.org, while journalists from Estonia's Eesti Ekspress gathered information on the military capabilities in western Russia. Satellite images were provided by Planet.com and analysed by colleagues from OSINT for Ukraine.
The Lithuanian military estimates that even in Kaliningrad, which is surrounded by NATO territory and only accessible from mainland Russia by air and water, it would take between several days and several weeks to restore the capabilities of before February 2022.
“There are certain zones, and I will give you an example: the Dobrovolsk polygon, which is located in the Kaliningrad region, and the Gozo polygon,” Major General Remigijus Baltrėnas, chief of the Defence Staff of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, points out to the Belarusian training ground right next to the Lithuanian border.
“Here is the 11th Army Corps, which has its headquarters in Sovetsk. All these facilities, where they are right next to the border, are given much more attention in the context of intelligence. And there are certain indicators where, when the forces move, they can realise that this is not a training exercise but part of preparations for operations,” he says, asked what would give NATO a clue that Russia is preparing an attack rather than just a military exercise.
But Russia does not need to fill up the empty military bases along the NATO border to demonstrate that it can influence the countries from within. Russian special-purpose intelligence units are deployed in Kaliningrad, including the 390 Special Purpose Intelligence Point, which trains saboteurs capable of operating in NATO countries, particularly Lithuania and Poland.
The LRT Investigations Team has received confirmation from Lithuanian intelligence authorities that these saboteurs may be involved in successful and unsuccessful attempts to carry out sabotage in Lithuania, as well as in Latvia and Estonia, Poland and other European countries.
And they have already tested Lithuania’s vigilance.
Kaliningrad GRU behind sabotage in Poland and Lithuania
What is written in the training plans of the Russian Special Forces is currently being tried out in reality.
It cannot be ruled out that Russian intelligence and security service units in Kaliningrad are involved in the planning and execution of attacks in the region. This is the confirmation LRT received from Lithuanian intelligence.
“Recently, there has been an increase in the number of attacks in Europe, including Poland and Lithuania, linked to these Russian goals. The desired impact is now being achieved at a relatively low cost. The attacks are usually carried out by individuals recruited through social networks. Their capabilities are relatively limited and they attempt to forcefully target less important but more vulnerable targets. The direct impact of each attack is relatively small, but the desired impact comes through the number of attacks and their resonance in societies. This is a low-cost, unsuccessful attempt to create a sense of instability and insecurity in Western societies and to undermine support for Ukraine,” says the LRT Investigation Team’s source who contributed to this publication.
In Poland alone, officials have counted dozens of suspicious incidents since the beginning of this year. In May, an arsonist who set fire to the IKEA supermarket in Vilnius was arrested in Poland. He and eight other detainees were directly involved in acts of sabotage in Poland on behalf of Russian intelligence services, according to Polish officials.
And last week, when the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborscza reported that Serhiy S., a Ukrainian who was arrested in a failed sabotage attempt last January, admitted to having been instructed by the Russian special services, there was a huge uproar in Poland.
According to the data collected by Gazeta Wyborscza, Serhiy’s phone was registered in Kaliningrad before arriving in Lower Silesia (and even in the US), however, he denies ever being in Kaliningrad.
Poland closed one of the three Russian consulates in the country and threatened to expel the Russian ambassador, while Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski demanded that Russia stop organising hybrid attacks in Poland and other NATO countries, which, according to sources in the Lithuanian intelligence services, are becoming more and more intense not in Poland and the Baltics alike.
Intelligence authorities in both countries note that individuals and groups linked to Russian intelligence services in Europe are increasingly turning to attacks with a physical impact, such as the desecration of monuments, arson, and attacks on individuals.
Taip pat skaitykite
Dangerously close diversionists
Artūras Paulauskas, who has since retired from active politics, headed the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defence in 2016, when Russia had just annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and started a war in Donbas. In an interview given at the time, Paulauskas indicated that Russian saboteurs might have landed in Juodkrantė on Lithuania’s Curonian Spit during an exercise.
In the interview, he said it was this incident that had prompted the State Security Department to say in its 2016 report on national security threats that “there are indications that Russian special-purpose military units are carrying out infiltrations into foreign countries in peacetime”.
The media were quick to pick up on this theme of Russian saboteurs and quoted intelligence sources saying that such a penetration could have taken place in Lithuania in 2015, a year after the annexation of Crimea. The Kremlin’s propaganda channels also reacted, calling the information about a possible landing of Russian saboteurs on a Lithuanian seaside “scaremongering”.
According to Paulauskas, his words at the time were a deliberate signal to Russia.
“Maybe I was too open at the time, but I wanted to pre-empt and let that side know that we know, we are not asleep. I was not criticised by the people who had been briefed in detail on the information gathered by the intelligence services – by default, everyone understood that it had to be said out loud,” says Paulauskas.
By speaking about Russian saboteurs, he also wanted to change the attitude of the Lithuanian public.
“A dangerous situation was developing. I was invited to many meetings, and business representatives were inviting me to explain what was happening. And I explained to everybody that it was it, that easy times were over, that we needed to strengthen our intelligence, our defence and spend more money on it. That year marked a turning point in people’s attitudes,” Paulauskas recalls.
And although the former politician would not disclose any new details about those events, sources tell LRT that, in 2015, saboteurs from one of the Russian military intelligence units, the GRU’s 561 special-purpose intelligence point, may have indeed landed in Juodkrantė.
According to the latest information, this reconnaissance point, deployed in the Kaliningrad region, was reorganised a few years ago into the 390th Special Purpose Reconnaissance Point. And although it is still referred to by different numbers in public sources, it is one of the most dangerous Russian military units on the NATO border in the Kaliningrad area.
The base of this unit is located in the village of Parusnoye (Gaudikai), just a few kilometres from the Russian naval base in Baltiysk. According to the latest data, up to 120 military personnel, including staff, work at this base. Unlike many units of the Russian army, including those from the Kaliningrad region, the saboteurs stationed in Parusnoye are unlikely to be involved in the Russian hostilities against Ukraine and are considered to be highly valuable specialists.
However, unconfirmed information can be found in public sources that some of the intelligence saboteurs from Kaliningrad were sent to the front to gain combat experience in wartime conditions at the very beginning of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The saboteurs of the 390th (561st) Reconnaissance Unit are being trained for tasks against NATO on the Baltic Sea coast and specifically against strategic targets in Lithuania and Poland. Their target is the port of Klaipėda and its infrastructure, as it is an important point not only for Lithuania but also for NATO operations. Its strategic location makes it indispensable for NATO’s supply chains, for Baltic operations and for regional defence in the Baltic Sea. Klaipėda is an ice-free port, operational all year round, handling bulk cargo, energy resources and military equipment. Palanga Airport is nearby.
“If we are talking and preparing for day X, when Russia decides to attack NATO, then this subversive group will have done its job by day X,” says one of LRT’s sources who assisted this investigation.
Tall men with no fear
There is not much publicly accessible information about this special Russian military intelligence unit. Satellite photos show that the training base has received extra attention and money in recent years, with the construction of a new training block and the renovation of the helipad. The area also includes a water body for underwater training, illuminated at night.
According to LRT’s sources, divers are also training in the Curonian Lagoon. They have training sites in the Russian part of the Curonian Spit, in the towns of Lesnoy (Šarkuva), Rybachy (Rasytės), and also in Morskoye, very close to the Lithuanian border.
Servicemen for this unit are recruited not from conscripts but exclusively from existing contractors and the Ready Reserve. These are men who are at least 172 cm tall, have no fear of small, enclosed, dark rooms or narrow passageways, and are extremely strong physically. And if they can speak a foreign language, that’s a big advantage.
According to LRT’s sources, the troops at the unit are trained in bombing on land and mine clearance at sea. Each soldier must be able to use all weapons. All soldiers learn to use a boat and a dinghy. Every soldier must be able to take over from another soldier in case of need, whether he is a minesweeper, sniper or group leader.
The Russian saboteurs’ training plan, drawn up in 2015, at the very time of the alleged Juodkrantė landing, specifies in one of the tasks that the reconnaissance/diversion group is to concentrate first on the Lithuanian borders. The task instructs them to cross the Lithuanian border undetected within 10 to 12 days, to cross the territory equally undetected, then to concentrate at a certain location on the Baltic coast and set up an observation post.
Experts see a much wider scope of activity of this intelligence subdivision of the GRU in Kaliningrad. They are trained to work in hostile territory to identify enemy weaknesses that would allow them to carry out sabotage actions, for example, by mining strategic objects or ships, as well as to monitor NATO’s logistics and supply chain in the Baltic Sea region.
Members of the 390th Reconnaissance Unit, working together with the special purpose units of the Baltic Navy, are able to carry out reconnaissance as well as cyber and psychological operations.
For example, by penetrating Lithuanian territory and mining key infrastructure in the port of Klaipėda – loading cranes, the pier or the docks – they can paralyse NATO’s ability to supply or deploy forces for operations in the region. Using medium-sized submarines such as the Piranha or diving transports, the 390th unit is able to carry out clandestine landings on the outskirts of the harbour, neutralise security forces and take control of key areas in readiness for larger-scale operations.
The unit can combine cyber warfare with physical attacks, disrupting port operational systems while conducting covert sabotage operations to delay or weaken NATO capabilities.
However, in addition to these special units already recruited, Lithuania is surrounded by the Baltic Navy, the Russian Land Army 11 and Belarusian army commanders loyal to the Russian armed forces.
Deceptive image on satellites
Satellite image analysis of military bases in Kaliningrad shows that the Russian ground forces military base in Gusev (Gumbinė) is empty. Pictures taken before 2022 show full military transport sites, but the situation has changed dramatically since then.
The war in Ukraine has damaged these forces. Some US sources have reported that the 11th Army Corps, based in Gusev, suffered heavy losses near Kharkiv in 2022. When Reuters journalists went to the corps' abandoned bases in Balaklia, Ukraine, in 2022, they found documents showing that some battalions had only a tenth of their original strength left. The ground forces in Kaliningrad have clearly been further weakened after, according to the Lithuanian military, some of them were transferred to mainland Russia in August, as the Ukrainian army began its push into the Kursk region.
General Remigijus Baltrėnas, chief of the Defence Staff of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, confirms that the Russian ground forces in Kaliningrad are now less of a threat to Lithuania.
“The land force is the one that’s undergone the biggest change and contraction. It is no secret that battalions were formed from the Kaliningrad troops and sent to the war in Ukraine. So this area is the most diminished and, relatively speaking, probably the least threatening at the moment,” says Baltrėnas.
And yet, according to LRT sources, despite losses in Ukraine, Russia is actually carrying out the announced expansion of its armed forces and increasing the size of its army. The Russian Armed Forces now have more troops, weapons and combat equipment than before the war.
This is confirmed by satellite images. For example, the Navy has invested in upgrading bases, increased the number of military vehicles and intensified training over the past year. The most dangerous place is Chernyakhovsk, where fighter jets and ballistic missiles are stationed. Analysis shows that construction has started in Chernyakhovsk, presumably to install powerful radars.
Meanwhile, the empty Gusev bases in the Kaliningrad region can always be rebuilt. Only opinions differ on how long it will take.
“The main drain is human, but this is only a question of priority. For example, if there is no great urgency, rebuilding the bases would take about a year. If it is accorded a very high priority, Russia could do it in a few months, but it would require a very large logistical effort,” an official familiar with the latest information told LRT, assuming that Russia needs to upgrade its capabilities not only in Kaliningrad.
Retired colonel Gintaras Bagdonas, former head of Lithuanian military intelligence, says the main challenge for Russia now is a shortage of commanders and specialists.
“I estimate that they will need two to four years – the time it takes to train officers and specialists – after the end of active fighting in Ukraine. Given Russia’s reliance on ‘mass’ tactics, they could shorten this timeframe to one year, for example, by putting reserve officers and specialists into short-term training. Mobilising 30,000 to 40,000 people per month for the war against Ukraine does not solve Russia’s problem of forming and reconstituting ground troop units. If a platoon (30 soldiers) can be commanded by a sergeant or an experienced soldier instead of a lieutenant, a company does need an officer – a senior lieutenant or a captain. A motorised brigade (3–4 battalions or 9–12 companies) should have at least 150 officers, and a specialised brigade (artillery, mechanised or tank) needs more officers and specialists. A war with NATO countries will not be like the war against Ukraine, where the fighting is mainly done with small units. Against NATO, they will have to fight in large units.”
However, if it were very willing, Russia would be able to rebuild and reman the emptied military sites in Kaliningrad within a few weeks.
“Probably the only way to get to Kaliningrad Oblast now is by ship. Since this is not possible by rail – there are legal agreements, transit rules – the only way is by ship or a very difficult and expensive way by air. In the case of ships, we are talking about days. A week. Bringing in the machinery alone does nothing. Once it arrives, it needs to be prepared and people need to start working with the equipment,” believes Baltrėnas.
Political scientist Tomas Janeliūnas, a professor at Vilnius University’s Institute of International Relations and Political Science (VU TSPMI), says that the different assessments on the timeline come down to the assumption that Russia needs to end the war in Ukraine first before it can focus on rebuilding its capabilities.
“It is assumed that Russia needs to restore everything it had at least before the start of the war in Ukraine. And this is how one can start calculating the time until it would potentially be ready for, say, a war against NATO. What is less often perceived, however, is that the current rate of reconstruction of Russia’s military industry is much higher than it was before 2022. Russia already produces more artillery shells per month than the whole of Europe, all European the countries that are in NATO,” says Janeliūnas.
Today, Russia’s emptied-out land bases are hardly reassuring also for the fact that Russia has built an air defence zone in the region known as A2/AD, which consists mainly of Iskander-M ballistic missiles as well as anti-aircraft and anti-missile defence systems.
“All those capabilities that the Russians have had in Kaliningrad from the very beginning – air defences, coastal defences for the Baltic Fleet, radio-electronic warfare – they are still there, because this is a very important aspect of Russia’s entire doctrine and philosophy of warfare. The same goes for the navy. Despite the war in Ukraine, the navy, the airspace, the so-called A2/AD bubble is still there and there is no change in this area,” Baltrėnas says.
The role of Belarus
Belarus is the country that makes it easier for Russia to plan an attack on NATO, should one occur. There is no doubt in Lithuania and Poland that the Belarusian military is an integrated part of the Russian military. They have been taking part in joint military exercises along NATO borders for years. It is known, for example, that in the Zapad21 exercise, Russian and Belarusian units trained to occupy the Kazlų Rūda training ground.
The Gozha military training ground near Grodno, Belarus, just across the border from Lithuania, is a facility that NATO intelligence takes very seriously. Just 40 km from the Lithuanian border, there also lies the Lida military airfield. It is another important military facility for Belarusian and Russian forces.
According to LRT sources, the Belarusian armed forces are actively preparing to counter the threat from the West and ensure the survival of the Minsk regime. For example, in April last year, the Belarusian defence ministry released a short video of an Su-25 pilot explaining his new role after training in Russia. According to analysts, the images in the video suggest that the Lida air base has become the new site of “nuclear sharing” between Russia and Belarus, that is, Belarusian fighter jets could be adapted to carry nuclear weapons.
However, some sources believe that Belarusian airfields are mainly intended to be used by Russia for its own purposes as Belarusian aircrafts may not be worth the effort of modernizing.
The military warehouses in central Belarus have recently been upgraded with additional security features. The area is believed to be used for Russian nuclear warheads for Iskander missile launchers. As recently as February last year, it was reported that a senior Russian defence ministry officer inspected the site near Asipovichy specifically for its suitability for storing nuclear weapons.
Satellite images show that construction at the site started around the time of the visit of the senior Russian official to Asipovichy. According to analysts, the new safety measures put in place are similar to those used by Russia to protect its nuclear weapons.
Analysis of public sources shows that a new unit, the 62nd Anti-Aircraft Missile Regiment, started to be formed at the Grodno military base in Belarus in September. According to analysts, this may be linked to the new operational teams that have been in formation since 2022.
And yet, according to analysts, the question of how the Belarusian army could participate if Russia decided to attack NATO remains unanswered. Even a recent simulation of a war with Russia, presented a few weeks ago by retired US generals, envisaged Belarusian forces as playing only a disruptive role, according to Lithuanian retired colonel Gintaras Ažubalis.
“Because the attack from the Belarusian side was not the main axis, there was no main effort from there, despite the fact that three Belarusian brigades were deployed. It was more a division than a corps. And the Belarusian forces acted more towards Vilnius as a disturbance. Where we had inferior weapons, they gave us a lot of trouble and they were heavily reinforced by the Russians, with Russian artillery very heavily integrated. We used them as satellites, allies of the Russian army and that is why they attacked towards Vilnius in this game,” Ažubalis, who took part in the simulation, told LRT.
Professor Janeliūnas notes that, although the Belarusian armed forces are already virtually integrated into the two-state alliance with Russia, they are not participating in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
“Lukashenko has not authorised military action against Ukraine, or at least we have not seen him send troops to Ukraine. Yes, he is lending his territory for possible shelling, but he has so far refrained from direct involvement because he understands that the Belarusian army is not ready in principle,” says Janeliūnas.
However, as the research by the LRT Investigations Team shows, Belarus is already participating in Russian aggression against Ukraine by allowing the use of its territory and infrastructure by Russian troops and keeping its forces on the border with Ukraine thus forcing Ukrainians to allocate part of their troops to the border of Belarus. Belarus hasn't yet entered Ukraine, because some parts of the military have opposed it. This means that A. Lukashenko doesn’t know whether his army, for example, will support the protests against the regime if such arise again.
The article was amended on November 12, 2024, to remove a paragraph that quoted Belarusian Hajun, a military activity monitoring group, saying that Russian anti-aircraft missile regiments were present in every airfield in Belarus.
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