A military simulation examining a hypothetical Russian incursion into Lithuania concluded that Moscow could seize control of the Baltic region within days. According to The Wall Street Journal, which reviewed the modeling results, the scenario has sparked intense and often uneasy debate inside European security institutions.

In the simulated sequence, Russia declared a «humanitarian crisis» in the Kaliningrad region and launched a rapid operation into Lithuania, quickly taking control of Mariyampole, a critical transport hub. The decisive advantage, the exercise suggested, was not battlefield superiority but political disarray in the West. The United States declined to invoke NATO’s Article 5, treating the events as a relief operation rather than open aggression, while European allies hesitated, unable to reach a unified response.

The Wall Street Journal notes that the outcome was driven less by Russian force levels than by paralysis in Western decision-making. A German brigade stationed in Lithuania never entered combat after access routes from its base were mined using drones. Poland placed its forces on alert but stopped short of crossing the border. Berlin, according to the assessment, displayed what participants described as a crippling reluctance to act.

The final analysis argues that undermining NATO’s defenses required only limited resources. With no clear leadership from Washington, Russia was able to assert control over the Baltics in a short time frame, deploying roughly 15,000 troops during the initial phase.

The military analyst who played the role of Russia’s chief of the General Staff in the simulation explained that the plan relied on anticipating the political and psychological behavior of opponents. He assessed that Germany’s predictable tendency to delay key decisions proved sufficient to achieve the operation’s objectives.

Lithuanian officials, however, reacted skeptically to these conclusions. The country’s chief of defense staff, Gedryus Premenetskas, argued that a surprise of this scale would be unlikely in real conditions. He maintained that Vilnius would have enough intelligence warning to prevent events from unfolding according to the game’s assumptions.

The simulation was organized by the German newspaper Die Welt together with the Military Gaming Center at Helmut Schmidt University. Sixteen former senior NATO officials, lawmakers, and defense experts took part in the exercise.