Overview

• General Christopher Donahue announced that NATO forces have developed a plan to neutralize Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave from the ground in an unprecedentedly short timeframe.
• Allies have formalized the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line to maintain a permanent, rapid-response land posture along NATO’s eastern border.
• Kaliningrad’s position as a heavily fortified Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania makes it a central focus of NATO’s deterrence strategy.
• Russian officials including Leonid Slutsky and Dmitry Medvedev warned that any NATO action would be treated as an attack on Russia and could trigger nuclear retaliation.
• A U.S. State Department spokesperson condemned Moscow’s nuclear rhetoric as harmful to regional security and reaffirmed commitment to diplomatic efforts to end the Ukraine war.