Nikolai Patrushev, assistant to the Russian President and chairman of the Naval Collegium, visited the Baltic Fleet base in the Kaliningrad region yesterday, to assess the implementation of plans for training sailors. He obviously had in mind the threat conveyed a week or so ago by the commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, Gen. Christopher T. Donahue, who had said that NATO had sufficient capabilities to neutralize Russia’s Kaliningrad region in case of a conflict and, in fact, had already developed a corresponding plan.
He took the occasion to reiterate earlier warnings he has made, telling Sputnik: “We have long been aware of Western plans concerning Kaliningrad. I can comment on them in the only possible way. The Kaliningrad region is an integral part of Russia and any military encroachment on it will be met with an immediate and crushing response using all the forces and means at our disposal, as provided for by the military doctrine and the principles of state policy in the area of nuclear deterrence. Russia has all the necessary military instruments to guarantee the security of the Kaliningrad region.”
For those in the West who might suffer from some levels of deafness, he went on to compare current Western strategic plans to the aspirations of “the Teutonic knights, the Prussian Junkers and their Nazi descendants,” whom, he said, ultimately “ended up in the dustbin of history.”
