The motorway that could save Nato from Putin’s aggression

A newly-widened road runs through a green and forested landscape, passing scenic villages and tranquil farms. It might for now present a vision of harmony, but if Russia were to invade any of the four Nato countries along the E67’s route, this highway linking Warsaw in Poland with Tallinn in Estonia would be the only overland corridor for reinforcements to avert disaster.

So the recent upgrade of the E67, also known as the Via Baltica, amounts to far more than a routine infrastructure project. Hence president Karol Nawrocki of Poland and president Gitanas Nausėda of Lithuania chose to meet at their common border to inaugurate the Via Baltica’s transformation into a four-lane motorway.

“This road has a dual purpose,” said Nawrocki candidly. “It will help our economy and strengthen the defence capabilities of our region.” The highway’s contribution to the latter “cannot be overstated”, he added.

Poland spent €2.6bn (£2.3bn) on upgrading its section of the road, of which almost €1bn came from the European Union.

Why those defences are so necessary will have been grimly obvious to both leaders. Their meeting took place roughly half-way between Belarus, now effectively a client state of Vladimir Putin, and Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad, where the Kremlin maintains thousands of troops and an arsenal of nuclear-capable Iskander missiles.

If Putin’s tanks ever come, they will probably strike across the 50 miles or so of Polish and Lithuanian territory separating Belarus from Kaliningrad. By capturing this vital terrain, known as the Suwalki Gap, Russia could sever Nato’s overland link with its three Baltic allies and exploit what some have regarded as the alliance’s Achilles’ heel.

Once isolated, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia would risk suffering the same fate as large areas of Ukraine, at least according to Putin’s plan.

But an immense effort is now underway to foil any Russian aggression before it ever begins. That partly involves preparing to block and slow down an invading force, which is why Poland and the Baltic states are building an interlocking chain of physical defences, including anti-tank ditches and “dragon’s teeth”. All four countries are also withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention to allow them to sow their most vulnerable frontiers with millions of landmines.

But the other half of the plan is to speed up the arrival of reinforcements and, if required, the new motorway would be intended to deliver enough troops at the first sign of a crisis to deter Putin and the Russian war machine. That is what makes the Via Baltica vital to the security of every Nato ally, including Britain, since the whole alliance would be at war if any one member were to be attacked.

Beginning in Warsaw, the highway runs north-eastwards for around 600 miles through Lithuania and Latvia before reaching Estonia’s capital.

Darius Antanaitis, a retired major in the Lithuanian armed forces and an expert on Baltic defence, explains that the convoy of vehicles needed to transport just one battalion can stretch for at least four miles. To move a division requires tens of thousands of vehicles.

Trying to accomplish this on the old Via Baltica, which had only two lanes, would have caused “complete chaos,” he says. “Military convoys are very long, so even the smallest vehicle breakdown, accident, or stop can cause an impassable traffic jam.”

Antanaitis notes that Russia’s assault on Kyiv at the outset of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 degenerated into a blood-soaked fiasco when armoured units were pinned down on the roads leading to the capital. At one point, there was a traffic jam stretching for nearly 40 miles, trapping thousands of Russian vehicles for weeks and making them easy prey for Ukrainian ambushes.

Antanaitis says the newly-expanded Via Baltica “allows an increase in the number of vehicles per kilometre” while also creating the “ability to bypass stopped or broken down vehicles without halting the entire convoy”.

The old road was not strong enough to support the heaviest machines of war, like tank transporters or self-propelled artillery, but the new highway is robust enough for this purpose.

At the far end of the overland reinforcement route is Nato’s battlegroup in Estonia led by 900 British soldiers, forming the Army’s single biggest overseas deployment. Their strategic position should be more secure now that the road behind them has been improved.

Yet the facts of geography render every Baltic state inherently vulnerable. The combined area of all three countries is only two thirds of the size of the United Kingdom. As small nations positioned along a coastline, they are devoid of what military planners call “strategic depth”, or enough territory to absorb and recover from any enemy attack.

But the decision of Sweden and Finland to join Nato in 2023 has transformed the situation for the better. The Baltic is now a Nato lake, with both shores of the Gulf of Finland and the approaches to St Petersburg falling inside the alliance.

“The exit of the Russian Baltic Fleet from St Petersburg into the Baltic Sea is completely controlled by Finland and Estonia,” says Antanaitis. “The airspace is further controlled from Sweden’s Gotland Island, and the sea and maritime logistics routes are also monitored.”

That frees Nato from sole reliance on the highway running through the Suwalki Gap: in any crisis, reinforcements would also be able to reach the most exposed allies using Baltic sea routes.

From this perspective, Kaliningrad looks less like a dangerous Russian outpost and a possible launchpad for an attack and more like a strategic liability for Putin, surrounded by Nato allies.

Moreover, the countries along Nato’s “eastern flank” – to use the official phrase – are now spending more on defence as shares of their respective GDP than any other members of the alliance, including the United States.

This year, Poland will invest 4.5 per cent of GDP in defence, Lithuania will allocate 4 per cent, Latvia 3.7 per cent and Estonia 3.4 per cent, all comfortably ahead of America’s 3.2 per cent – and far above Britain’s 2.4 per cent.

Step by step, the most endangered allies are closing the chinks in their armour as far as they can, exemplified by the upgrade of the Via Baltica. Even so, they cannot hope to change Russia’s imperialist ambitions.

“People in Lithuania have felt fear and understood the threat for centuries, which allows us to prepare,” says Antanaitis. “But today, as Nato and EU members, we are significantly safer.”

For the countries united by the road, it amounts to far more than a simple highway. President Nausėda of Lithuania hailed it as nothing less than a symbol of “freedom, prosperity and security.”