Image Shows NATO Frontline Country’s Plan to Blunt Invasion

Front-line NATO ally Lithuania shares a border with Russia. At risk, the country has plans for a fortified border aimed at severely hindering a potential Russian assault.

New images shared last week by Lithuania’s Ministry of National Defence show a defense in depth, around 30 miles of defenses meant to slow an invading army.

The ministry told Business Insider that the plan “involves sophisticated layered defence systems at different distances from the border,” with the “most intensive” measures being within the first three miles. This area will feature border control points, anti-tank ditches, dragon’s teeth to stop tanks, minefields, and fortified strongpoints with trenches.

This image, shared by the defense ministry, shows plans for the first three miles.

The first 12 miles include additional obstacles, such as drainage ditches, bridges prepared for demolition, blocked bridgeheads, and secondary defensive positions, and the zone up to 30 miles out includes roadside trees prepared for felling and “additional infrastructure preparations.”

The ministry said that “substantial work is already underway,” including sections of dragon’s teeth and road blocks. These types of defenses have seen effective use in Ukraine, with Russia’s layered defenses hindering Ukraine’s summer 2023 counteroffensive, preventing it from leveraging Western armor packages for mechanized breakthroughs.

Lithuania said the timeline for the border defense project is 10 years, with two distinct phases.

Ahead of 2028, the focus is on developing and building measures that would stop a Russian advance. Then, the ministry explained, “from 2029 onwards begins the long-term maintenance, system modernisation and development phase.”

Lithuania is allocating more than $1.2 billion over the next ten years on measures that would stop a Russian invasion force, the ministry said, “with a significant portion of funding expected to come from EU programmes.”

Preparing for Russia

Lithuania is one of the European countries warning the loudest that Russia might seek to attack NATO after Ukraine. Its defense spending and related agreements with allies have soared as a result.

Many countries in Europe are concerned. But for Lithuania, as well as its Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia, those warnings have been much more urgent given their position.

Lithuania’s defense ministry told Business Insider that the new images reflect fortification efforts that will “build directly” on other border defense projects that are already underway, like the Baltic Defence Line with Latvia and Estonia.

That defensive agreement involves the three Baltic countries coming together to build stronger defenses, including bunkers, along their collective borders with Russia and Belarus, which altogether stretch around 1,000 miles.

The ministry said that the new effort will also work with Poland on its East Shield project: the protective border it is building along its border with Russia and Belarus that includes minefields and concrete barriers.

Lithuania’s defense ministry said that the new border defense efforts connect to the existing ones while also ensuring resources are employed effectively and measures aren’t duplicated.

Lithuania is acting

Warnings from Lithuania and its neighbors that Russia is a threat came even before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. They had spent years warning other Western countries that Russia was a threat and that it could attack another European country.

Earlier this year, former CIA director David Petraeus identified Lithuania as the country he believed was most at risk of a Russian invasion.

Lithuania is one of the biggest defense spenders in NATO as a proportion of its GDP and is also one of Ukraine’s biggest supporters by the same measure, seeing Ukraine as a longtime partner that is now helping Europe by holding Russia back.

It was also one of the first countries to commit to bringing defense spending to 5% of its GDP, something that most NATO countries have since agreed to do under added pressure.

Defending Lithuania and its neighbors, as NATO members on the border with Russia, is considered essential by many alliance members. Allies contribute to their air defenses and other fortifications. Germany, for example, has established a new brigade in Lithuania that’s set to grow to 5,000 German soldiers and civilians there by the end of 2027. It marks the first time it has put troops in another country on a long-term basis since World War II.

Brig. Gen. Christoph Huber, the commander of the 45th Armored Brigade, said that it was created “for the alliance, for Lithuania, for Europe’s security.”