Staunton, April 19 -- Yury Dolinsky, a Russian analyst who specializes on the Baltic countries, says that most residents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, however much they say they are worried about the Russian threat, believe that their membership in NATO will keep Moscow from invading or force Moscow to withdraw if it does invade to test the Western alliance.
But Jaan Murumets, a senior Estonian military analyst who now works at Tallinn's Center for Defense Studies, says that there is another reason why Russia will not invade: it lacks the available forces to seize and then hold the territory of the three countries and control their borders.
In remarks widely quoted in the Estonian and Russian media, Murumets said that a rapid Russian invasion and re-occupation of the Baltic countries "would be physically impossible." Moscow would need "a minimum" of two divisions for each of these tasks, something it does not currently have available. |