NATO prepares a Baltic fortress to head off Putin

NATO prepares a Baltic fortress to head off Putin

Gotland is preparing for a Russian attack while traditional security ties with the U.S. fray.

By VICTOR JACK
in Gotland, Sweden

Photo by Victor Jack

NATO is scrambling to fortify a windswept Baltic island that military planners increasingly see as one of the alliance’s most exposed — and strategically vital — front lines against Russia.

Perched in the middle of the Baltic Sea, Gotland sits just 300 kilometers from Russia’s heavily militarized exclave of Kaliningrad. As fears grow over Russian aggression, hybrid attacks and wavering U.S. commitment to European security, Sweden and its NATO allies are racing to turn Gotland back into a military stronghold.

Last week, Sweden wrapped up its first NATO-coordinated exercise on the island since joining the alliance last year. Around 18,000 troops from 13 countries trained across Gotland’s dusty plains for a possible Russian assault.

A Russian attack “could happen anytime,” Swedish Chief of Defense Michael Claesson told POLITICO, as soldiers weaved between armored vehicles on the western side of the island.

The exercise highlighted the difficulties faced by Sweden: The U.S. shrank its participation — part of a larger pattern as Donald Trump pulls back from NATO — and the Ukrainian troops taking part in the training showed off their drone warfare mastery by rapidly destroying a Swedish armored detachment.

Then there’s the need to calibrate a response to Russia’s under-the-radar hybrid attacks that fall short of full warfare.

“They have seen a lot of increased Russian activity … cable-cutting, drone overflights, quite a few incidents of espionage,” said Anna Wieslander, director for Northern Europe at the Atlantic Council think tank. “When you have a situation where you have a lot of uncertainty regarding U.S. commitment … the risk increases that Russia takes this as an opportunity.”

Unsinkable aircraft carrier

Variously changing hands between Denmark, Sweden — and briefly Russia — Gotland is a crucial strategic asset.

Michael Claesson, Sweden’s chief of defense. | Victor Jack/POLITICO

“With the range and position of today’s [weapons] systems, if you control Gotland, you can control much of what’s going on in the Baltic Sea,” said Niklas Granholm, a deputy director of the government-backed Swedish Defence Research Agency. 

The island has been nicknamed an unsinkable aircraft carrier for its role as a critical launchpad for air operations across the region; fighter jets taking off from there can reach any Baltic capital “within minutes,” he said. 

If Russia took the island and installed air defense systems, it could block ships and planes supplying the three Baltic states and Finland, he argued, and choke off allied troop reinforcements. If NATO holds onto Gotland, it could close off Moscow’s access to the Baltic Sea, use longer-range missiles to defend the region and fire munitions deep inside Russia.

In response to the Russian threat, Stockholm is rapidly re-militarizing the island of 60,000 — reversing the post-Cold War drawdown that left only a handful of troops on Gotland. Sweden has invested over €200 million in infrastructure upgrades, reactivated air defense systems and reinstated a regiment armed with CV90 armored vehicles and Leopard 2 tanks.

Andreas Gustafsson, the Gotland regiment’s commander, told POLITICO “at least a thousand more” rotational troops would join the 4,500 currently on the island “within a year.” He added he hoped longer-range artillery units would join them “soon enough.” The island is also expected to host new medium-range IRIS-T air-defense systems from 2028.

One possible scenario was Russia trying to covertly land troops on the island from a commercial vessel while jamming radio signals and suppressing air defenses with drones, Wieslander said.

Andreas Gustafsson, the Gotland regiment’s commander. | Victor Jack/POLITICO

Despite those worries, Gotland’s security is now in a “good place,” she added, especially after Sweden joined NATO in 2024.

The training exercise was aimed at testing multinational cooperation — bringing together Canadian and Danish soldiers, Finnish F-18 jet fighters, British snipers, U.S. and Norwegian marines, and Dutch Apache helicopters.

Sweden’s accession to the alliance means “we have redesigned our plans,” said French Rear Adm. Frédéric de Rupilly, NATO’s deputy chief of staff for plans at the alliance’s joint command in Virginia.

Gotland gap

As well as bracing for a head-on Russian attack, Gotland is facing growing hybrid threats from Moscow.

In the past 18 months, the island experienced a sudden water leak after a critical pump was sabotaged, faced a subsea fiber optic cable cut and has seen frequent radio interference affecting everything from planes to ambulances.

Claesson, the army chief, said he was “pretty concerned” by the hybrid attacks. “Obviously the Russian doctrine … is actually to try to identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities and do whatever they can to exploit them,” he added.

Tarik, 24, a drone operator from central Ukraine helping train Swedish troops. | Victor Jack/POLITICO

Like its fellow NATO allies, Sweden also has to deal with the looming prospect of fighting with less — or no — U.S. support. In the past month alone, Trump has blindsided Europe by announcing sudden troop withdrawals from Germany and Poland, teased further long-term capability reductions and chipped away at the alliance’s credibility, raising further questions about Washington’s reliability.

In a sign of that wavering, the U.S. slashed the number of troops it deployed to the Gotland exercise, according to a person familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for U.S. Army Europe and Africa told POLITICO “participation levels from different countries often change during the planning phase,” noting that 300 American soldiers still joined. They declined to say how many had been originally planned.

For their part, the American troops taking part in the exercise insisted that military-to-military ties remain strong. “Our forces have worked together exceptionally well,” said Lt. Col. Travis Chamberlain, the commander of a U.S. Marine battalion sent to Gotland.

“We’ve seen great levels of integration … working on very detailed integration security plans about how we would protect the force and provide logistic sustainment throughout the island,” he said as his soldiers mingled with Swedish troops in a grassy enclosure.

As one of NATO’s top defense spenders at 2.5 percent of GDP and with a strong domestic arms industry, Sweden does “not rely on the U.S. to defend Gotland,” said Wieslander. But it does need Washington for certain weapons systems, she said, including Patriot PAC-3 missiles and logistics support like equipment maintenance.

The exercise also highlighted the new era of mass drone attacks — something where Ukraine and Russia are far ahead of the alliance in terms of innovation and production capabilities.

Lt. Col. Travis Chamberlain, the commander of a U.S. Marine battalion sent to Gotland. | Victor Jack/POLITICO

Swedish troops were forced to restart part of the exercise three times after 17 Ukrainian soldiers deployed drones to annihilate their troops, according to a 24-year-old drone operator from central Ukraine who went by the call sign Tarik.

“We had a mission with a scenario with … up to 20 battle tanks attacking in a mechanized assault,” he told POLITICO, as a patched-together one-way attack drone buzzed across the rural skyline behind him. “I just flew with my drone — I saw all of them, so it was easy targets,” he said.

Preparing for more

Sweden — and NATO — insist they’re working hard to tackle those problems.

Following the recent hybrid attacks, Meit Fohlin, the regional government chief, said she meets “every week” with the coast guard, police, firefighters, army, hospital, water and energy operators to map out responses to every possible scenario — ranging from energy shortages to supply blockades to an armed attack on the local harbor. 

“We have to be on top of everything,” she said from her office in the island’s medieval capital Visby, adding she now works with all 92 parishes on the island to instruct them on how to react to every crisis scenario.

Gustafsson, the Gotland regiment chief, said he was drawing immediate lessons from the Ukrainian drone unit. “I was quite surprised [by] the numbers that they actually use and face every day,” he said. “My main takeaway is that we have to train with drones a lot more.”

Meit Fohlin, the de facto mayor of Gotland. | Victor Jack/POLITICO

But given the importance of Gotland for the alliance, some capitals still say NATO could do more. The alliance should consider placing permanent long-range air defense systems on Gotland to deter Russia, said two NATO diplomats, granted anonymity to speak freely.

The key is to not let Moscow take the initiative, said Claesson.

“We should not sit on our hands and wait for this and that level of regeneration of Russian armed forces to happen,” said the Swedish defense chief, “but instead be constantly on our toes and prepared.”

CORRECTION: This article has been updated on May 28 to correct the name of the Gotland regiment’s commander. It is Andreas Gustafsson.