The troops begin digging in.

Now the follow-on forces are essentially coming out of their staging areas in Russia.

In total, we have assembled four armies, and we are sending in the next wave of troops, also equipped with heavy Piranha equipment, and are now consolidating individual villages and roads, fortifying them with additional layered defensive positions.

They never confront the blue team openly with that during the war game, but it is clearly part of the thinking: nuclear threats.

And then the next option would be to signal to NATO and the German Federal Government that we would also be quite prepared to potentially employ nuclear weapons, and to signal this by activating some of our Iskander-M missile units in Kaliningrad and also in Belarus, and to inform the Americans accordingly.

Are they prepared to defend the Baltics in an emergency, also at the nuclear level? I find that hard to imagine.

Episode four: Europe Without America.

As part of my planning, I have also developed a detailed attack plan against Germany.

It focuses primarily on Germany's logistics hubs and critical infrastructure.

On the one hand, I target them with missile strikes, with ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.

Then there'd be long-range drone attacks.

We now have that capability as a result of the war in Ukraine.

At the same time, there'd be, of course, terrorist and sabotage operations as part of the hybrid campaign.

The Russian military chief already has specific targets in mind.

We will start off by thanking the American side for its efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine.

I'd immediately cast them in the role of mediator.

I would emphasize that this should be a bilateral process.

Above all, we should stress that we see the United States as a mediator, not as an active party to NATO.

The military chief now outlines a plan for further escalation.

As part of my planning, I have also prepared a detailed attack plan against Germany in case economic and diplomatic pressure fails to achieve the outcome we are seeking I think we also need to make the German public understand just how vulnerable they would be to a Russian attack.

This one centers on the Suwalki Gap.

We can establish fire control over the Suwalki Gap without having to send military personnel directly into Lithuania.

With forces currently at my disposal, we could use multiple rocket launchers, artillery, mines, and based on what we learned in the war in Ukraine, drones, to prevent NATO forces from moving through the Suwalki Gap without physically establishing defensive positions inside Lithuania.

Within 24 hours, they link up in a strategically important city.

The military key to the Baltics is the city of Mariupol.

Critical transport routes converge there, and it is effectively the only major land route through which NATO reinforcements and supplies could move.

One of Russia's main objectives would therefore be to seize the city as quickly as possible.

In the simulation, he plays Russia's military chief.

Ultimately, this is not about the Baltic states.

It is about reshaping Europe's security architecture so that it aligns more closely with our interests than the current one does.

To achieve that, we have to weaken NATO and undermine the European Union at its foundations.

In the war game, the Russian military chief defines precisely that as the objective.

Our objective remains the same.

We want a European security architecture that closely resembles the one in place in 1997, meaning no permanent NATO forces stationed in Eastern Europe.

The summer

... a couple of weeks from now.

And also, I think it's important to understand context-wise that it assumed a ceasefire, a temporary ceasefire, at least in Ukraine.

But when I looked at, at how to best create a military crisis, [chuckles] I mean, "best," quote, unquote, of course, I quickly realized, uh, that Russia has a lot of conventional capability here, and I worked under the assumption that I could essentially use that conventional, uh, capability and capacity fairly quickly and actually hold a couple of advantages vis-à-vis NATO.

So first off, um, I had speed, right? The assumption was that I, as the Russian side, was just much faster in my decision-making processes vis-à-vis the NATO alliance, also because of what is happening in the United States in terms of domestic, uh, politics and so forth.

And from a pure practical perspective, um, the fundamental problem for NATO is that Russia, in any contingency, would already have a substantial amount of forces very close to the border of the Baltic states, in this particular case, Lithuania, and NATO, if we would look at the current or if you assume that the current force posture holds or that it's just incrementally going to be increased over the next couple of years, always will need to move its forces into the theater.

I mean, not the theater, but at least the battle space, the Baltic status.

With missiles a- and drones or just drones?

and how Ukraine is managing steadily to gain the advantage on the ground.

Well, I think it's fair to say that the Ukrainian position along the front line is much better in June 2026 than it was in June 2025.

This has multiple reasons, and let me cite perhaps the most important one.

I think, first off, Ukraine currently holds parity, if not an advantage, in unmanned warfare, especially drones up in the air that can more effectively target not just Russians on the frontline, although it's a bit of a misnomer to call it frontline and it's much more a gray zone that really stretches for a couple of miles in each direction of the forward line of own troops, if you are in both directions, the Ukrainian and Russian side.

But also Ukrainians are capable of striking with drones targets behind the front line, especially targets beyond kilometer 30, which is traditionally the range of artillery, or at least this is where most artillery can hit.

And Ukraine back in June 2025, for example, was able to see a lot of targets beyond kilometer 30, which is, I believe, something like, I think, 18 miles, I think.

But it was not able to strike these targets.

what does that dynamic look like for ground forces and armies?

Im Donbass, richtig?

Genau, das ist, äh, genau Konstantinowka, äh, liegt im Donbass und im Süden eben von Kramatorsk und ist eine der heiß umkämpftesten Städte gerade im südlichen Donezk.

Und hier ist auch im Moment der Hauptfokus der russischen Angriffsoperationen.

Und was man sagen kann, ist, dass in den letzten Monaten die russischen Verluste sehr hoch waren.

Man muss auch hier vielleicht, äh, anmerken, dass die russischen Verluste auch in den ersten Monaten im Jahr 2025 hoch waren, dass es dort sehr viele mechanisierte Angriffe gegeben hat.

Mechanisierte Angriffe finden oft statt, eben bevor quasi das Blätterwerk zurückkehrt, was eben der Infanterie Tarnung eben ermöglicht auf dem Gefechtsfeld und ein, äh, einfacheres Vorgehen, weil man unent-- länger unentdeckt bleiben kann.

Das kommt erst, äh, im späten Frühling, im Frühsommer zurück und dadurch, ähm, werden Infanterieangriffe stark reduziert und man setzt auf mechanisierte Angriffe, die im letzten Jahr nicht erfolgreich waren, die auch in diesem Jahr nicht erfolgreich sind.

Wie gering sind denn die Mittel, die dafür aufgewendet werden müssen?

Aber womit hängt

das noch zusammen? Ja, also es gibt mehrere Punkte.

Der erste Punkt ist der, dass tatsächlich, um das Partikum abzuschneiden und um quasi militärische Ziele im Partikum zu erreichen, muss Russland nicht in Litauen oder in Lettland oder in Estland einmarschieren.

Es kann wirklich von Weißrussland und von Kaliningrad... eine sogenannte Feuerkontrolle etablieren.

Feuerkontrolle bedeutet einfach, dass die wichtigsten strategischen Stellungen, beziehungsweise ein wichtiges strategisches Territorium, wie die sogenannte Suwalki-Lücke, eine 56 breite Grenze, die zwischen Kaliningrad und Weißrussland verläuft und wo eben die polnische und litauische Grenze entlang sich zieht.

Um hier quasi Feuerkontrolle wie die Suwalki-Lücke zu erreichen, brauche ich keinen einzigen Soldaten in Litauen.

Ich brauche einfach mehrfach Raketenwerfer, ich brauche andere Artillerie, ich brauche Drohnen, ich brauche Minen.

Aber das wäre doch genau dieses Überraschungsmomentum, von dem du sprichst, oder?