Operation Baltikum (1 of 2), 28 May 2026

This post, which is meant to be my final word on the Baltics, became so long that it will be in two parts, to be read together as I only cut it in the middle.

Last week, Ukraine sent 600 drones and other devices of various sizes towards Russia in response to their attack, which was a “thank you for the ceasefire on May 9.” Zelensky made a promise of proportional retaliation, also called a comeback.

Around Moscow, RU has built several layers of air defense with exactly EVERYTHING they have in their arsenal + what they are trying to develop, a couple of hundred different systems or more protecting a small geographic area.

Moscow’s refinery was hit several times for the first time in the war.

The total number of drone attacks on refineries since the start of the war is now up to 146 by the way; I have a small list I update every time a refinery burns, an Easter list of joy.

I don’t think Russia can handle another year of this – the strategic drone war combined with their own offensive losing steam and Ukraine’s offensive operations increasing sharply also make the situation on the ground in Ukraine more than worrying for the staff, even though there is probably some delay in understanding. No one wants to deliver bad news up the chain, a natural filter.

The conclusion I want to reach – if Russia intends to do as they always have and try to increase the level of violence when the current level does not give the desired result, this needs to be done this year because by 2027 it may be too late. An escalation also needs to come before the mud season rolls in sometime in October, unless one wants to wait until winter, then Europe gets another half year to prepare.

The other leg of this assumption is that Europe has now, albeit late, probably understood that we should learn from Ukraine after seeing how MENA was devastated by Iran and a platoon of Ukrainian anti-drone operators suddenly was more valuable than a ton of gold, revered by a unanimous MENA. Within a couple of years max, we will have the same level as Ukraine on our digital battlefield, telewarfare, drone weapons and anti-drone weapons – I discussed this a bit the other day and why the old zoo of dinosaurs has slowed things down so far. We have had a great discussion with Swedish defense Twitter now after Aurora 2026.

All else equal, over time Belarus will turn to the EU, a people’s revolution Ukraine is working against by the way – guess where the presidential candidate has just been…

Hungary was just lost to RU and Transnistria is not far away.

Kaliningrad will become demilitarized/autonomous – there is a strong movement in the enclave for that.

And when Ukraine is done with RU’s fleet in the Caspian Sea, they will go after the Baltic Sea fleet.

After the recent posts about Operation Baltics, which apparently will become recurring from my side, there have been some discussions in the thread on johanno1.se and especially two comments have been put forward that I now intend to take a whole post to reason about to better support my argument.

First, the calibration – will Ukraine get there first and win its war or will we fortify the today undefended area in the Baltics enough, probably nothing will happen because that threshold is too high for Russia.

Undefended vast forests can get you far without alarms ringing, and if we don’t show our fangs there is always the risk that RU gets a feeling.

I want to introduce one more level – all terrain north of the Daugava. Need to check the post from 2025 but I recall it was included, it has slipped into black and white to become exactly the whole Baltics or little green men.

Daugava is a very attractive natural barrier.

Suwalki is an artificial barrier that is worthless if Kaliningrad falls, and in Lithuania there is no corresponding natural undefended obstacle.

The Lithuanians have their capital near the Belarus border and such places tend to be defended.

So everyone who thinks “a few miles of forest in eastern Baltics, why bother” must not forget that the drive time Daugavpils – Riga is under three hours.

The risk for a conflict zone in the Baltics SHOULD be over when the mud season rolls in PROVIDED we don’t dawdle with preparations.

A Russian DNA seems to be drawn so that at the slightest sign of weakness they just throw themselves over the victim but that they refrain from strength they feel is not a hot air balloon.

1. If Russia in any form attacks the Baltics, NATO will immediately, at the request of one or several Baltic states, activate Article 5 which in the long run will neutralize the threat to the Baltics. Individual states will also be ready to act outside NATO if needed.

2. If Russia in any form attacks the Baltics, NATO/EU/Europe will immediately go over Kaliningrad and neutralize the Baltic Sea fleet – that battle will be devastating for Russia which in the long run neutralizes the threat to the Baltics.

This will be a very long post, perhaps my longest, which will go off in different directions which you have hopefully started to get used to, but try to get through it – it is well supported partly with information but we also have various events since early 2025 to fall back on, things that were incredible until they no longer were – the probability of various reversals has been adjusted upwards.

We have a rather strange discussion right now where the Supreme Commander and MUST warn that Russia will try to occupy islands in the Baltic Sea soon but the Baltics I am quite alone in promoting.

I don’t understand why.

https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/ob-varnar-ryssland-kan-testa-nato-inom-kort

The Baltics are starting to get a bit worried though

https://www.svd.se/a/d4v96J/putin-kan-testa-natos-artikel-5-redan-under-sommaren

The most important thing, if you want peace you must prepare for war, before the war comes. I added the last part myself because it seems necessary if you are to follow defense Twitter’s screams right now when their exercise just became an exercise in humiliation and degradation as they made the mistake of letting the Ukrainians be OPFOR – they probably won’t do that again.

When the US declared war on Iran by not declaring war at all and just bombing the country to pieces, the discussion immediately split into two camps. I myself believe the Iranian regime should be replaced for more peace in the world and that it is far from over yet. For example, it is rumored that the Iranian army has started fighting with the IRGC in some places and we know that Israel/USA have not directly fought any of the higher army commanders, only the IRGC, the mullah regime and Basij.

But there are worrying details in this that possibly point to a hidden agenda – the US/Israel let militias from surrounding countries in and tricked Iran into fighting oil infrastructure in MENA by first starting to bomb it in Iran. We have gone through this and you all read everything.

The other camp is those who feel the US has completely failed, it won’t work because everything is harder, Iran fights back and similar reasoning. One can at least go so far as to say that the US absolutely has not succeeded to date in neutralizing Iran so that they still pose a major threat in the region. At least Israel is starting to get worried but the laws of war apply to them too and now they chose to join forces with Trump who in three months totally wrecked what looked promising – that the rest of MENA saw Israel as a stabilizing force in the region and wanted cooperation.

There is no point in trying to guess if this was Trump’s plan all along with Putin and Xi because it is far too speculative.

The blue team USA (or red team depending on which country you are in) which according to the collective expertise is supposed to have the world’s strongest military attacked a country of 90 million that has indeed engaged in terror and military buildup but has not been involved in high-intensity warfare since the 1980s, and certainly not against a high-tech opponent before. However, one can assume they tried to learn from the Iraq wars?

My guess was that the US engaged in some military deception during the negotiations so that Iran would not deliver a first strike against their naval forces in the area – the fact is they did not, the Iranians themselves have said that the negotiations would have continued on March 6 but the war intervened. If you add an Iranian first strike all else being equal, it would have been preferable for the bad side, with a high probability that they were faked out.

But as soon as Russia – Europe comes up, the conviction is rock solid that we will first have a decision chain that works like a well-oiled bicycle wheel and then through the right decisions and appropriate use of force relatively quickly decimate the Russian threat so we can restore the Baltics their statutory international right to freedom and eternal happiness.

Russia is if not a high-tech opponent at least a technological opponent but above all they have gained intimate practical work experience over four years, China has also tried to bridge their technological blind spots since 2023 and we have seen improvements.

We saw Russia’s digital battlefield go from being unusable at all to working very well from 2024 onwards – their kill-chain is fully operational with all indirect capabilities even though we have guessed that they will have problems in mobile combat, which we hope to see this summer.

I think it was first during the Kursk offensive where an MRAP from UA rolling on a country road barely survived a salvo from artillery – that was the turning point because before that the salvo came at best a few minutes after the vehicles had passed and preferably 200m to the side.

The question we cannot answer yet – is Europe an equal opponent or alternatively better than Russia?

When countries go to war both sides believe they hold the best hand, then it hits and you get a receipt – if you are a bit lucky it is enough to fine-tune.

The most important thing, is Europe mentally ready to go to war with Russia?

Russia is under heavy pressure in Ukraine but they are fighting against the world’s best defense force today – recently various high-ranking US military officials have praised the Ukrainian miracle, for example their Delta which “is better than what we have in the US”.

Hit to target from detection is now so short that it is almost ridiculous.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/05/13/ukraines-battlefield-integration-surpasses-us-militarys-army-secretary-says

Ukraine has a defense force of perhaps +1.2 million and has, as you know since 2022, the world’s best shooting according to Johan No.1 – we have seen it countless times. They have a strong will to defend their potato fields and a very large untapped goose with Russia. The number of dead, wounded, and psychologically incapacitated is staggering but Russia has met its superior man/woman/other gender identity in its brotherly people in Ukraine.

There are two sides to that coin where the other side is the Russian defense force which now has a well-functioning drone weapon, painful practical work experience, a digital battlefield and in addition has begun building a strategic reserve which they equip with newly manufactured materiel. We can assume that this reserve has been trained by veterans from Ukraine.

This offensive strategic reserve has all the traditional branches of weapons to then be topped off with the drone weapon which we partly do not have ourselves but also get absolutely crushed by when it is tested as OPFOR during exercises since 2025 as we have not yet figured out how to defend ourselves against it.

So what is the Baltics?

According to Russia it belongs to them – the explanatory models are of course completely off the wall but what is interesting is what motives the attacking party has.

Russia is also trying just like us to find the most advantageous geographically dominant terrain they preferably want to stand in when this war is finally over – Johan No.1 wants a demilitarized Kaliningrad, a disintegrating Russia into ten new countries and a free Belarus joining the EU. The Belarusians almost managed to gain their freedom but Europe chose to turn away so Russia could send in the FSB and Rosgvardia for some disciplining – the first missed opportunity for us not to end up at war again.

By the way, exciting that Ukraine has met the real “presidential candidate” in exile.

https://ukranews.com/en/news/1153761-belarusian-opposition-leader-sviatlana-tsikhanouskaya-arrives-in-kyiv

Russia knows they cannot get Poland because Germany is on the wrong side of history today according to them.

It is enough to look at the map to understand that the Baltics are a geographical big win for Russia – if they succeed in reincorporating the Baltics into the Russian empire their influence over the Baltic Sea will suddenly be heavenly, they will have a much more pleasant land border against what they perceive as a united Europe on the rise that is starting to become seriously troublesome.

Kaliningrad is vulnerable and the Baltic states have already cut the land route, now that we are starting to board the shadow fleet the step to a full naval blockade of Kaliningrad is not very big – if Russia loses Kaliningrad all else being equal they lose the little dominance they have in the Baltic Sea and they will have to run the Finnish gauntlet again if there is war – this has historically rarely led to great empire victories, mostly burning sinking ships.

This is their reality regardless of what we think about the issue – now it is not us and our reality that will start this war, if it comes.

According to previous posts, we have two developments running in parallel – Ukraine is slowly starting to win its war and Russia is preparing for an escalation in some form against us. Which one comes first we do not know and Ukraine cannot be expected to take more responsibility than they do today, they are pushing at the pace they can handle. We keep our fingers crossed that they get there first but we must prepare for war – anything else is negligence even for the dinosaurs in the defense forces who have had a salary all these years precisely for a scenario like this.

Threat and escalation steps

Since we by definition have chosen to be reactive we will have to run along the entire Russian escalation ladder.

This is one of the absolutely most important parts of Russian warfare where they constantly try to get below the level that forces the opponent to make a decision, they spread disinformation, their allies in the opposing team slow down all attempts to make decisions and then above all the threats – constantly threatening with overwhelming force if the opponent by any chance would think to meet proportionally.

2022 – 2024 this worked excellently in Ukraine, after having worked even better in 2014. Europe consistently did too little too late which prolonged the war by several years – this is a reality we have to relate to but it is also some indication of how we will act under pressure for Russia who make their analyses based on history.

The Germans’ “we don’t even send standing helmets” was downright tragic.

For Russia, this subversive weapon is still functionally operational and has a probability of working that is probably sufficiently attractive.

Now today in 2026, we at johanno1.se were right that Hormuz would be closed in case of conflict, with the difference that they did not sink any ship in the middle of the channel – it is Pearson’s book that turned out to be correct again, which is what I base my entire analysis on. Many have argued in the past year that Hormuz would never be closed, but now here we are with cut oil supplies. It was a bit messy, for a while it was Trump who was supposed to close the strait – that Pearson had not predicted.

The Iran war, some minor conflicts Thailand – Cambodia, India – Pakistan, the Ukraine war in its fourth year, enormous subversive activities and sabotage against Europe with a new axis Russia – China – USA beginning to form after both Trump and now Putin have visited/are visiting Xi in China.

In the post about Xi-Trump a few weeks ago, we assumed that Taiwan would be up, and it didn’t take many days before Trump couldn’t hold back, so we have almost a receipt that China-USA are reasoning in terms of dividing spheres of interest between themselves now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyp9mk3mrgo

Trump has his full focus directed against us – they are pulling their spearhead away from Europe along with critical (one might guess) staff functions, besides that Trump and Xi only visit the “wrong” countries in Europe – Russia, Belarus, Hungary, Bosnia, Slovakia.

It’s not just the artillery battalion below that won’t come, probably also the Stryker brigade from Germany besides the brigade that was to go to Poland for rotation but was canceled, then staff functions are to be removed – which ones I don’t know.

If you ask me, there will be more that Trump soon urgently needs elsewhere, and I think Trump’s promise of more troops in Poland is evasive – of course, I could be wrong.

After all the above, it becomes a bit easier for me to build a credible escalation ladder;

1. Blocking the Baltic Sea is an early measure, sink 2 ships from the shadow fleet in the middle of the Denmark channel so no ship enters the Baltic Sea that is not already in the Baltic Sea. Russia immediately accuses us of being guilty and points out that Sweden has previously boarded many ships – this is a bold act of war that Russia will consider for a while before responding proportionally.

They also mention in passing that the ships unfortunately transported *(insert any unstable explosive, today’s nitroglycerin)* so it is absolutely impossible to salvage them – whatever you do, don’t touch them, buying time.

Since Ukraine has bombed Russian port installations for export and especially Sweden now boards shadow fleet ships increasingly, they don’t have much to lose. Suitable Russian ships pass this channel daily.

2. Russian media announces that there are tactical nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad which they cannot guarantee won’t accidentally explode if a Polish boot happens to cross that border – media floods with maps showing fallout and blast radius where they cheat all the way to Berlin.

By the way, Belarus now has nuclear weapons.

China announces exercises in Belarus, a company of SOF with some dozen officers from the general staff lands under full military honors – the purpose is to prevent anyone from conducting acts of war against Belarus as that would draw China into the war.

Putin really tried but the only thing he got over to Kaliningrad was a regular rifle platoon of Chinese with two colonels Xi still intended to dismiss – it is widely reported in Russian media networks that China is in Kaliningrad in a peaceful joint exercise for great world peace.

3. Russia floods the media with its nuclear threats as usual and that it is proportional retaliation if Europe conducts acts of war against the Russian motherland – for example in the Baltics which everyone knows is Russian but absolutely across the borders into today’s Russia – then it will explode immediately. Satan 2 will this time not explode in the silo or crash during flight, promises Putin, they will all hit their targets. Exactly how many Putin is vague about because he knows he soon only has one left unless the engineers work weekends and nothing burns down.

4. Information about how many Geran drones Russia could fly over Europe starts appearing in the media and the range is exaggerated so not even Lisbon is safe. Overflights with +20 drones are carried out a couple of times where after the second time we decide to shoot them down with our top fighters, and manage to bring down seven.

Now Russia has proof that we will sacrifice our ground and airborne missiles during large drone operations, and thanks us for the confirmation. They had guessed that because that was how Ukraine acted in the first years where every troop commander had orders to show maximum strength until they realized it was a good way to run out of ammunition.

Or MENA where the Gulf states fired up to 8 Patriots at one drone or missile in the first days.

https://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/air-defense-news/eight-missile-for-one-drone-ukrainian-instructors-shocked-by-us-drone-defense-tactics

(During the first major Geran operation in Europe when air defense plotted the routes and saw that our major cities were the targets, there was as expected a highly trigger-happy defensive fire, and then immediate screaming about ammunition shortage).

Russia explains from time to time that indirect attacks from Europe against Russian targets including the Baltic fleet and their motherland in the Baltics will be met with proportional 500 Geran drones/2 days – they cite Ukraine as evidence in the matter.

5. Along with this, Putin pushes for peace in our time together with Trump and Xi where he dearly and honorably promises to de-escalate all the above as soon as Ukraine is made to take a pause – the children have suffered for too long now. Putin also promises to release LNG and oil at half price, he calls it a peace discount for Europe that will last over five years. Since our LNG stocks have started burning and the leadership from Azerbaijan has been subjected to sabotage, Germany is beginning to air that they will have big problems this winter without LNG, especially since it seems to be an El Nino year giving a brutally cold winter in January-February. Bad timing there, even the weather is against us, the German energy minister feels, is this God’s punishment for our attempt at a better world in 1939 that no one liked, he thinks gloomily.

Trump leaks that it is important for his midterm elections, and China that world trade and peace must prevail.

There are several alternatives here in an increasing scale that are adapted to the situation –

-RU withdraws to the old ATO line and declares a ceasefire as a first attempt. If that doesn’t work, they leave all of Ukraine and proclaim Peace in Our Time where the USA and China immediately start negotiations with Ukraine with binding demands that Ukraine lets the weapons rest.

The purpose of point 5 is to remove Ukraine from the equation by giving the citizens enough so that they choose peace, making it politically locked to try to resume hostilities for Zelensky and Budanov.

6. When Estonia and Latvia (which are without government) start calling their allies about infiltration deep into the Baltics, Putin flatly denies and claims that these are local resistance movements, on the same day there are many demonstrations with Russian citizens around the Baltics who are tired of all the oppression, hatred, and threats.

“We want freedom” it says on the placards and Putin threatens military intervention if a hair is bent on their heads.

All films are clipped so social media is flooded with older protesters who are bloodied and hit in the head – the Balts’ attempt to explain that it was not their riot police delivering the blows is drowned in the Russian film storm.

6. In larger ports in Europe, ships sink or misnavigate and block harbor entrances, shipping companies come up with a flood of excuses.

7. After the most valuable soft resources in the Baltic Fleet have left for Murmansk, and a couple of surface combatants have arrived in the Baltic Sea from the Northern Fleet, the fleet leaves the quay and positions itself around the Baltic Sea

(a classic from the Cold War – a smaller submarine surfaces in the current and announces that if the Swedish government does not surrender, a couple of tactical nuclear charges will self-detonate in two hours).

They remain under radio silence with open missile hatches that reach all European capitals, Putin is clear that they are only there to protect the shadow fleet.

8. On Åland, Fårö, the large islands off Estonia and on Russian islands in the Gulf of Finland, activity is reported which the Russians flatly deny. MUST says it is coastal missiles, LV missiles, MANPADS and drone groups that have landed with naval spetsnaz as close protection delivered by the shadow fleet and fishing boats.

Apparently the Russians had hidden lots of weapons at their Åland consulate, and the entire embassy staff was replaced with operators.

The Swedes had played it safe and reinforced Gotland, and the Danes Bornholm, but the other islands were undefended since Åland is demilitarized and the Balts themselves are responsible for their islands.

After a quick analysis, it is concluded that together with the Russian Baltic Fleet, the Baltic Sea is to be considered impassable for anything other than surface combatants for the time being.

9. Ships from the shadow fleet position themselves around all of Europe in international waters with a surface combatant or submarine from the Northern Fleet as company, Ukraine contacts us confirming that these ships probably have Geran warheads onboard.

10. Putin threatens that “all internet traffic and electricity transmission you have under the water surface around all of Europe we can cut whenever we want.” During 2026 the British shadowed several GUGI ships over their cables, and in the Baltic Sea we have already had 13 cable breaks since 2022 so no sensible analyst believes it is an empty threat.

https://www.tv4.se/artikel/6a0m91n4CNddTrpJP3VP8a/sammanstaellning-kabelbrotten-kopplas-till-fyra-fartyg

12. Putin threatens that “your nuclear power plants, hydroelectric plants and electrical infrastructure really look vulnerable, hope you don’t have any accidents this autumn now that it’s going to be a bitterly cold winter.”

13. In several countries in Europe, the opposition demands new elections and demonstrations against incumbent governments reach storm strength.

Left, right and Islamists all simultaneously take to the streets to shout out their core issues.

The gangs go to war with each other, and the criminal clans want more of everything.

I have surely forgotten something but roughly these are the escalation steps before full conflict where in the twilight phase it increases to direct sabotage and actual acts of war but which are still somewhat in a gray zone.

Post two will come on Friday.