Polish FM: NATO drills near Kaliningrad to pull Russian troops — SkimNews
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- Radosław Sikorski proposed at the Sept. 11 Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv that NATO allies exercise aggressively near Kaliningrad to force Russia to withdraw forces from Ukraine, while ruling out any offensive action against the exclave.
- Sikorski argued Russia's invasion has hollowed out Kaliningrad's garrison, telling the panel that during a recent visit to a Polish base in Latvia "there are hardly any troops" visible on the Russian side.
- A 2023 U.S. Center for Naval Analyses report found Kaliningrad's 11th Army Corps had up to 18,000 ground troops pre-war, while Lithuania's defense ministry estimated only "several thousand" were stationed there for last September's Zapad 2025 exercise.
- Poland is preparing to host the first Coalition of the Willing military drills with British and French forces.
- Poland's East Shield initiative — worth roughly 10 billion zloty ($2.7 billion) — is funding fortifications and natural terrain obstacles along the 800 km border with Kaliningrad and Belarus.
Why it matters: A senior NATO frontline diplomat is publicly arguing that aggressive alliance exercises near Kaliningrad — once home to 18,000 Russian ground troops — could force Moscow to divert combat power from Ukraine. With Poland simultaneously spending $2.7 billion on border fortifications and hosting the first Coalition of the Willing drills, the proposal widens the war's strategic footprint onto NATO's eastern flank at the explicit request of a Polish government minister.
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