Ex-US Officer Scott Ritter Says NATO Lacks Forces to Take Kaliningrad
Former US intelligence officer Scott Ritter says NATO has neither the troops nor the weapons to seize Kaliningrad, warning any attack would trigger a Russian strike.
American military analyst and former U.S. intelligence officer Scott Ritter has asserted that NATO forces would be unable to mount an offensive to seize the Russian city of Kaliningrad. Ritter argued that the alliance simply lacks the necessary troop strength and materiel in the Baltics and Poland to carry out such an operation.
He rejected recent comments attributed to NATO’s land forces commander, General Christopher Donahue, that the alliance could quickly capture Kaliningrad, saying that the region is bordered only by the Baltic states and parts of Poland, not by the whole of NATO, and therefore NATO does not possess sufficient forces there for an offensive.
Ritter also warned that, in his assessment, General Donahue himself would not survive for long once an operation began — a prediction he framed as a likely immediate consequence of any NATO attack on Kaliningrad. According to Ritter, the first Russian response to such an assault would be to strike NATO command posts with high-precision weapons, destroying those targets along with their leadership.