The most dangerous place in Europe? Life on the Achilles heel of NATO

The first shots are already falling on NATO's Achilles' heel. A group of uniformed men with yellow armbands and long guns fight house by house against other uniformed men with red armbands. There is brush, abandoned buildings, and trenches. This could be the East of Ukraine, but we are in Lithuania, in the middle of the European Union. The shells fly back and forth, the tension is palpable. Everything seems to fit the arms race debate that has dominated Europe since Russia's attack on Ukraine. But nothing is as it seems. The shells are colored balls, and the uniformed men are friends on a bachelor party. The battlefield is called Sudovus Vilkai, a paintball facility a hundred meters before the Polish border. A corridor of 65 kilometers Away from such war games, the Achilles' heel of NATO is full of yellow flowers, lush greens, and wooden houses, where women tend their gardens. The people encountered here worry much more about inflation and fuel prices than about a Russian invasion. Yet, their homeland is considered one of the most dangerous places in Europe by military strategists. This refers to the approximately 65 kilometers between the Russian exclave Kaliningrad and Belarus along the Polish-Lithuanian border. This strip is the only land connection between Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and the other countries of the EU and NATO. The military warns of the following scenario: in the event of a conflict, Russia could try to occupy the corridor. Then the three Baltic states would be cut off by land, and Kaliningrad would be connected to the allied Belarus. Among the most famous warnings is Ben Hodges. The retired US general led a brigade of the 101st Airborne Division in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. From 2014 to 2017, he commanded the US ground forces in Europe. In this role, he called the Suwałki Gap one of the most sensitive points on the world map in 2015. Since February 2026, Hodges has also advised the Finserve Global Security Fund. This is an actively managed stock fund with a global focus on defense, cybersecurity, and space. His analyses are intended to help the team divide the portfolio into the sectors of defense, cybersecurity, and space. Anyone who wants to assess his warnings should know this. However, he expressed them years before this engagement. NATO General Grynkewich presents a new strategy against Russia – Warning to Putin Tanks are sought in vain, for good reason Whoever drives the jeep along the forest roads to the border finds neither hidden tanks nor large military bases. There are no fortified installations and no villages with evacuation plans. Instead, one sees farmsteads, small settlements, roads with stately deer, and countless owl nests. This is less contradictory than it seems, as the border between two allies runs here. An attack would come from Kaliningrad or Belarus. That is why Poland and Lithuania are building their blocking positions on these external borders, and the troops remain further inland. The German Panzerbrigade 45 has been being built in Lithuania since 2025. In case of war, it would be their mission to keep the Suwałki Gap open. By the end of 2027, it is to be fully ready for action. Then 4800 soldiers and 200 civilian members of the Bundeswehr are planned, of which 3000 at the training ground Rūdninkai and the rest in Rukla. Furthermore, the Polish and Lithuanian armies hold joint exercises in the Suwałki Gap. Directly at the border, only the former installations of the Soviet armed forces at Lake Galadusy remind of barracks and soldiers. They are overgrown with brush, and YouTubers as well as fans of dark tourism have not yet discovered them. Scattered documents, uniform remains, and old photos of unclad women lie on the ground. There are training zip lines and rows of team toilets without any partition. Reclaimed from nature: Basketball hoop on the site of a former Soviet border guard barracks. © Unai Aranzadi A controversial hero Besides this relic of the bipolar world lies a memorial for Adolfas Ramanauskas. He was born in 1918 as the son of a Lithuanian immigrant in Connecticut and came to Lithuania in 1921 as a three-year-old with his parents. He completed his military training in 1940 under the authoritarian-nationalist regime of Antanas Smetona, which ruled from 1926 to 1940. During the German occupation, he worked as a teacher. After the Red Army expelled the Wehrmacht from Lithuania, he joined the partisans in 1945, who fought against Soviet rule. From 1949, he was part of the leadership of the newly founded Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters and later commanded their defense forces. In 1956 he was arrested and tortured by the KGB, and in 1957 he was executed. Wooden sculpture for the partisan leader Adolfas Ramanauskas. In Lithuania, he is considered a national hero, but his memory is controversial. Jewish organizations and Holocaust researchers accuse him of being involved in antisemitic violence in 1941. They rely mainly on his own memories of the anti-Soviet Uprising. The state Lithuanian center for the study of genocide and resistance has rejected the accusations. The debate is not over. The last enclave of Europe: Life in the shadow of the new Iron Curtain "Who knows if it is really that dangerous?" Near the memorial, Jonas is walking, a Lithuanian in his middle age. A war with the Belarusian and Russian neighbors remains abstract for him, he does not count on it. "Honestly, I don't know anyone who is armed or really afraid of an invasion. We hear a lot about this place, about the Suwałki Gap and all that. But who knows if it is really that dangerous?", he asks before disappearing into the forest. The Suwałki Gap is named after the Polish city of Suwałki, which is about 30 kilometers away. If you want to send someone far away in Poland, it is often said: "Go to Suwałki." The saying corresponds to the German "Go where the pepper grows!". In films like in real life, Polish police and officers sometimes threaten their subordinates: "If you don't do what I order you to, I will move you to Suwałki." The area is considered one of the poorest, most remote, and coldest regions of the country. The term "Suwałki Gap" was made known by the then Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves. He used it in April 2015 at a meeting with the then German Minister of Defense Ursula von der Leyen in Tallinn. The model was the "Fulda Gap" in East Hesse, which NATO considered a possible escape route for Soviet tanks during the Cold War. Ilves transferred this fear of the 20th century to the new situation on the flank of the alliance. An expansion, two interpretations Behind the term lies a fundamental question that is still debated: Was the NATO enlargement a provocation or precaution? When Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia joined the alliance in March 2004, relations between the EU and Russia were relatively good. The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement was signed in 1994 and entered into force in 1997. It regulated political dialogue, trade, investments, as well as cultural and economic cooperation. In 2004 it was extended to the new EU members by protocol, and today it is de facto obsolete. Upon entering into force, the EU essentially declared that the agreement put an end to the Cold War. After the EU-Russia summit in May 2004 in Moscow, both sides worked towards closer partnership. It was to encompass four "joint spaces": economy; freedom, security, and justice; foreign security; research, education, and culture. Former Soviet watchtower overlooking Poland © Unai Aranzadi Despite the lack of tensions, the relationship was not. Moscow openly rejected that the alliance was approaching Russia's borders. Since spring 2004, NATO states have alternately monitored the Baltic airspace with interceptors. Russia saw this as an advance of the alliance. For the Baltics, it closed a gap, as they do not possess their own fighter aircraft. The accession was understood by Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians above all as a lesson from their history: from the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the Soviet annexation of 1940, and the mass deportations to Siberia. It remains debatable whether the enlargement provoked Russia. The opposing view is that Moscow's later wars gave the Baltics the right: in Georgia in 2008, in Ukraine since 2014, and as a full-scale invasion since 2022. The Bundeswehr practices war on the NATO eastern border: Tank exercise tightens tensions near Belarus Liubavas: Now there are other heroes The change in the Suwałki Gap is as clearly shown in Liubavas as in Liubavas. The village consists of beautiful houses, a church, a cemetery, and farmsteads. It is located directly on the border with Poland and only fifteen minutes from Kaliningrad. The watchtowers still stand here from which Soviet border soldiers monitored everything. Part of the old border installation is also preserved, which separated the Soviet Union from the Russian Republic: a fence two meters high with barbed wire. Next to it, the fence that Lithuania has been building on the border with Belarus since 2021 appears huge. It was created after Minsk brought migrants to the EU border. Here live Jurate and Virgis, an artistic couple who sculpt and paint. For the two sixties, there is no conflict between Russians and Lithuanians or between them and their Belarusian or Polish neighbors. "Our generation is accustomed to brotherhood and to speaking several languages: a little Russian, Polish, of course, some English, and a lot of Lithuanian. We are not politicians, and what they say does not particularly interest us. But from the propaganda that comes from all sides, we do not feel represented," they say in their house full of cats and artworks. Virgis and Jurate in their house in Liubavas. They do not feel represented by the propaganda "from all sides". © Unai Aranzadi How their village has changed in recent years, they can hardly describe it themselves. "Things have changed at some point," says Jurate reservedly. She tries to show the place where the village used to be thought to be inhabited by Soviet soldiers who died fighting against the Third Reich. The search between vegetable gardens and field paths remains unsuccessful. Finally, Ginas, a neighbor, who is mowing grass in front of his house, shows the exact spot. There used to be memorial plaques for the victory over the German occupation. Ginas holds nationalist views. He says: "The Soviet dead buried here can stay underground. But plaques or monuments to commemorate them – no, we removed them. Now there are other heroes." He points to a new mausoleum with fresh flowers. It honors the defense forces of the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters, which Ramanauskas once led. The anti-Soviet partisans are now known as "Forest Brothers". For many Lithuanians, they embody the resistance against Soviet occupation, which lasted until the 1950s. Their history also has dark chapters. Some partisans had served in police battalions under German occupation, which were partly involved in the murder of Lithuanian Jews. A new monument commemorates the partisans Juozas Lukša and his comrades. © Unai Aranzadi Later, British and American intelligence services tried to use the resistance for their purposes. The repurposing in Liubavas is not an isolated case. Since 2023, a Lithuanian law prohibits glorifying totalitarian regimes in public space. Since then, many Soviet monuments have been removed, while the soldier graves remain. Different in Šalčininkai near the Belarusian border, where many members of the Polish minority live: There still lie fresh flowers at the Soviet soldier memorial. Soviet soldier memorial in Šalčininkai near the Belarusian border, with fresh flowers and a ribbon in the Russian national colors. © Unai Aranzadi Mockava: Tracks, electricity, and transit Another important place on the Suwałki Gap is Mockava, about six kilometers from the border. Long ago, the place was the railway gate to the Baltics. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia still use the broad track gauge from Soviet times, which Russia also uses. Trains from Poland are therefore rerouted or reloaded here unless they take the new standard track route of Rail Baltica, which has led to Kaunas since 2015. Mockava Station: Here the European standard track and the broader Soviet-era gauge meet. © Unai Aranzadi "And that's not all," says a train employee among the many parked trains at the station. "Until last year we used the cheap electricity that we got from Putin. That was really embarrassing for the politicians. Now we have stopped that to not finance the invasion of Ukraine." Then he spits on the ground and continues working. Lithuania has not been importing electricity from Russia since May 2022. In February 2025, the three Baltic states also separated from the old power grid with Russia and Belarus and joined the European network, a step planned for years. Ready to kill Russians? "We have a crystal-clear mission" – Visit to the Lithuanian Brigade Trains roll from Belarus to Kaliningrad further north, on the Kena–Vilnius–Kaunas–Kybartai route. For passengers, much has changed there: Since March 1, 2024, trains that travel from Russia through Lithuania to the exclave of Kaliningrad are no longer allowed to take or let passengers on or off. Previously, travelers with EU visas or residence permits were boarded and disembarked there. Vilnius justified the step with the fight against smuggling, the enforcement of sanctions and security risks. The transit repeatedly caused disputes between Brussels and Moscow. When Lithuania stopped the transport of sanctioned goods in 2022, Moscow threatened retaliation. In July 2022, the EU declared that Lithuania must allow the transport of sanctioned goods between Russia and Kaliningrad, except for weapons. Road transit remained prohibited, but according to EU guidelines, rail traffic was not to be completely banned. Moscow still speaks of a "de facto blockade" of its exclave and a violation of international law. Deteriorated interior of a former Soviet border guard barracks on the Suwałki Gap. The building has been empty for decades. © Unai Aranzadi How big is the danger? The assessment of how big the danger is varies. The Federal Intelligence Service currently sees no signs that Russia is preparing a large-scale attack on the NATO territory. However, BND President Martin Jäger warned of Russian military operations of "lower intensity," especially in the Baltics. Germany also risks being drawn into a armed conflict with Russia. Skeptics still consider the Suwałki Gap overestimated. The terrain with hills, forests, lakes, and rivers favors defenders and complicates armored advances. Since Finland and Sweden joined NATO, the Baltic Sea is largely surrounded by member states, and the corridor has lost importance. Security researchers also warn that the frequent use of the term itself can contribute to securitization. This means that whoever constantly speaks of the most dangerous place in Europe might be making it so. Your opinion is important to us. Send us your feedback on this article to: briefe@berliner-zeitung.de