A confidential document drawn up by the German Ministry of Defense (MoD) envisions how a possible escalation of the war in Ukraine could potentially develop. The hypothetical development involves Russia and NATO each gradually increasing troop build-up in eastern Europe until hundreds of thousands of troops face off against each other at the Suwałki Gap in June 2025—and leaves the outcome of the confrontation open.
Berlin’s exercise scenario, according to the German daily Bild, heavily relies on a set of assumptions that would all need to occur before further escalation, but each component of the chain of events is presented as the next logical step.
The scenario, titled “Alliance Defense 2025,” starts with Russia beginning a new wave of mobilizations by calling up an additional 200,000 recruits in February 2024, who then manage to weaken the Ukrainian positions along the line of contact in the next spring offensive.
In July 2024, Russia would then begin covert cyber-attacks and other forms of hybrid warfare on the West and East Central Europe in particular, while inciting Russian-speaking minorities in Baltic countries. The political crisis in the Baltics would eventually be used to justify a massive military exercise (similar to the one in 2021), called ‘Zapad 2024’ in September, involving at least 50,000 Russian troops in Belarus and western Russia.
Responding to Western media and politicians’ inevitable alarm, the document pictures Russia in October starting to spread propaganda of an impending NATO attack and continuing to build up troops in Belarus as well as shipping medium-range missiles to its Kaliningrad enclave. It would then become obvious that Moscow’s ultimate goal is to occupy the Suwałki Gap—the Polish-Lithuanian land bridge between Belarus and Kaliningrad.
With everything prepared, the outline suggests, Russia would wait until the U.S. election to begin the second phase of its plan. Anticipating that a narrow defeat of President Biden and a heavily contested outcome would cripple the U.S. for at least a few months, Moscow could begin to induce artificial ‘border conflicts’ and deadly riots around the Gap in December 2024, to eventually repeat the 2022 invasion on NATO soil.
While Poland and the Baltic countries would report an increasing threat and request immediate assistance from NATO, Moscow would use their actions to accuse the West of planning an invasion against Russia at the UN Security Council’s emergency meeting in January, ordering even more troops in the area to ‘defend’ itself.
By March 2025, under this scenario, Russia has two tank divisions, a mechanized infantry division, and a deployable division headquarters lined up just outside of NATO borders, with over 70,000 troops in Belarus alone.
This would lead to a situation where, by May 2025, NATO has no other option but to approve “measures for credible deterrence” to forestall a Russian invasion of Poland and the Baltics. On “Day X,” NATO orders the transfer of 300,000 troops to the area, including 30,000 Bundeswehr soldiers. The scenario ends thirty days after “Day X,” but without specifying whether NATO’s deterrence strategy worked or led to an open war between Russia and the West.
There’s not much to suggest any of this will play out in real life, but the potential is there, nonetheless. We will have to wait and see whether the first assumption—a new wave of Russian mobilization ahead of a coming spring offensive—becomes a reality. So far, Moscow denies that it would plan to bring in any recruits besides the occasional volunteers, but certain signs are pointing toward the opposite.
In any case, Berlin seems to take its assessment seriously, as last week, it announced a military exercise with armored infantry divisions between April 21-26th in Poland and Lithuania, the two countries flanking the Suwałki Gap.
While the scenario contains no big surprise to those familiar with wargames, the timing of the leak led analysts to suggest that it may have been intentional. The document signals to Moscow that Berlin is paying attention and is getting ready for confrontation while showing Europe’s more reluctant countries that they need to take Russia seriously and that escalation is possible.
The leak might also be a message to the German people so that they understand the gravity of the situation. Recently, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned that the country may only have 5-8 years to prepare for the next major conflict, hinting at the need to revisit compulsory military service as well. In case the Germans didn’t understand what he meant, the leaked document paints a pretty good picture.
The Swedish government recently had a similar idea of preparing the population for the worst, although Stockholm’s plan backfired spectacularly. Last week, panic buying ensued while teenagers and worried parents took to support hotlines after the government’s ominous social media (including TikTok) campaign went live, telling Swedes that “War is Coming.”
PM Ulf Kristersson’s government ended up having to apologize for scaring children with the campaign, saying that they meant only to warn about a hypothetical but plausible scenario. Perhaps that’s why Berlin chose to go the extra mile and leak its entire rationale instead of just running a similarly simple ad campaign. After all, it does want Germans to accept the new reality, but whether the threat is real is a different question.