OPINION:
The Russian drone strike that injured two people in a Romanian apartment last month should hardly have come as a surprise to most of Eastern Europe.
It was the latest of at least 150 hybrid warfare attacks against NATO countries in the past year, according to Eurasia Review.
Hybrid warfare tactics often demand responses with resources that could have gone to Ukraine. They also destabilize and stir up the populations of neighboring countries.
Yet one of those countries has gotten stronger for them.
I spoke with a member of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union who asked to go by “L” for anonymity. He told me, “By trying to poke us with hybrid ops, they have made Lithuania so much stronger.”
Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941 and again from 1944 until 1990. According to L, no one has forgotten. “Regardless of generation, everyone’s family has been persecuted by the Soviets, and we all are conscious of the Russian threat,” he said.
He then listed several recent hybrid Russian attacks on Lithuanian soil, including package bombs, the defacing of an anti-Soviet icon’s statue, arson, disinformation campaigns and aerial drones.
Yet these incidents have seemingly rallied the citizenry and allies alike. Despite the withdrawal of the U.S. Army’s 12th Cavalry Regiment from Lithuania, L told me that Capt. Zach Lanctot and his unit worked tirelessly, day and night, for several months through joint military exercises with the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union in preparation for the withdrawal.
L wasn’t too worried about the U.S. departure, noting that many other NATO allies have troops stationed in Lithuania, including Germany, Britain and the Czech Republic.
Combined with heavy investments in artillery, drone defense systems, armored personnel carriers, and CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles — as well as the resolve of an entire nation — L believes Lithuania has become stronger than ever before.
“People are learning first aid, survival skills, and most families have an evacuation plan. Russia can defeat an army, but it cannot defeat a country,” he told me.
Russia thrives in psychological warfare, but at least for one Baltic state, that appears to be backfiring.
“In the 20th century, three empires occupied Lithuania,” L said. “Russia choked on us twice. Our job may be to make them choke a third time.”
TYLER KANIA
Columbia, Connecticut
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