People walk past a street side cafe with an army recruiting screen calling for a contract for service in the Russian armed forces, in the center of Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

A new wargame conducted by former Nato, German and European officials has concluded that Russia could “achieve most of its goals” in the Baltics within days, exploiting hesitation inside the alliance and the absence of clear US leadership. The exercise, jointly run in December by Die Welt and the German Wargaming Centre at Helmut Schmidt University, played out a fictional but detailed scenario set in October 2026. It envisaged Moscow using claims of a manufactured “humanitarian crisis” in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to justify a rapid incursion into southern Lithuania, targeting the city of Marijampolė. Marijampolė sits at a critical junction of European infrastructure. The Via Baltica highway, used by the EU and Ukraine, runs southwest toward Poland, while an east-west road links Belarus and Kaliningrad, a route Lithuania is obliged to keep open to Russian traffic under treaty obligations. Control of the city would effectively sever Nato’s land link to the Baltic states.

How the incursion unfolds

In the simulation, Russia deployed an initial force of roughly 15,000 troops and framed its advance as a limited humanitarian operation. The United States declined to invoke NATO’s Article 5, the collective-defence clause requiring members to come to the aid of an ally under attack. Germany, despite already having a brigade deployed in Lithuania, did not intervene after Russian forces used drones to lay mines near a military base. Poland mobilised forces but ultimately refrained from sending troops across the border. Within days, the game suggested, Moscow had secured effective control over the Baltic theatre without escalating into a wider conventional war.

A NATO wargame shows Russia rapidly conquering the Baltics while the US revokes Article 5 and Europe hesitates/ Graphics: The US Sun

Bartłomiej Kot, a Polish security analyst who played the role of Poland’s prime minister in the exercise, told The Wall Street Journal: “The Russians achieved most of their goals without moving many of their own units. What this showed to me is that once we are confronted by the escalatory narrative from the Russian side, we have it embedded in our thinking that we are the ones who should be de-escalating.”

Germany’s hesitation and Russia’s calculation

One of the central dynamics exposed by the wargame was the extent to which Russian success depended less on military strength than on political expectation. Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military analyst who assumed the role of Russia’s chief of the general staff, said Moscow’s advantage lay in anticipating Berlin’s caution. “Deterrence depends not only on capabilities, but on what the enemy believes about our will, and in the wargame my ‘Russian colleagues’ and I knew: Germany will hesitate. And this was enough to win,” he said.A parallel public-journalistic wargame conducted by Die Welt reached similar conclusions, showing Germany responding initially with sanctions, maritime measures in the Baltic Sea, and internal civil-protection preparations, while avoiding direct military confrontation. As military facts were established on the ground, the burden of escalation shifted decisively onto Nato, making reversal increasingly costly and risky. The exercise brought together former senior political decision-makers, retired military leaders and Nato officials, including Oana Lungescu, Nato’s former principal spokesperson, and Eberhard Zorn, Germany’s former inspector general of the Bundeswehr. Participants operated independently, and the scenario was not scripted.

A wider European warning

The findings land amid growing concern across Europe that Russia may pose a more acute threat to Nato sooner than previously assumed. Last year saw repeated incursions by Russian drones and aircraft into Nato airspace, which officials and analysts described as probes designed to test alliance responses. Netherlands defence minister Ruben Brekelmans told the Wall Street Journal that his government had assessed that “Russia will be able to move large amounts of troops within one year”, adding: “We see that they are already increasing their strategic inventories, and are expanding their presence and assets along the Nato borders.” Oana Lungescu, reflecting on the wargame, warned that a frozen or unfavourable settlement in Ukraine could leave Moscow more dangerous, not less. “Russia could become even more dangerous to Nato after some sort of peace in Ukraine, especially if it’s a bad peace,” she said, calling the simulation “very realistic, unfortunately”. While the scenario was fictional, its designers stressed that its purpose was not prediction but exposure: to reveal how decision-making, hesitation and alliance politics might unfold under pressure, and how quickly military realities could outpace diplomatic intent.