Polish FM: Drill near Kaliningrad to draw Russian troops — SkimNews
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- Sikorski proposed NATO hold drills near Russia's Kaliningrad exclave to force Russia to withdraw troops from Ukraine, speaking Sept. 11 at the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv.
- Kaliningrad is now nearly empty after Russia diverted forces to Ukraine, with Sikorski noting from a recent visit to a Polish base in Latvia that "there are hardly any troops" on the Russian side.
- NATO should exercise "so aggressively" near the exclave that Putin becomes "uncertain of what we will do," Sikorski said — while explicitly ruling out offensive action against Kaliningrad.
- A U.S. Center for Naval Analyses report found pre-war Kaliningrad hosted the 11th Army Corps with up to 18,000 ground forces; Lithuania estimated just "several thousand" troops there for Zapad 2025 preparations last September.
- Poland is separately preparing Coalition of the Willing drills with British and French forces and building fortifications along the 800 km border with Kaliningrad and Belarus under its East Shield initiative, worth ~10 billion zloty ($2.7 billion).
Why it matters: Poland is simultaneously preparing Coalition of the Willing drills with British and French forces and building $2.7 billion in East Shield fortifications along the 800 km Kaliningrad-Belarus border. If NATO adopts Sikorski's aggressive-drill proposal, Russia would face pressure to divert troops from Ukraine back to its nearly emptied exclave — a stated second-front squeeze achieved without offensive action.
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