A high-level war game organized by a German newspaper in cooperation with the Wargaming Center at Helmut Schmidt University has raised fresh concerns about Europe's ability to respond swiftly to renewed Russian aggression, particularly without U.S. leadership.
The simulation, first reported by Die Welt last week, envisioned a scenario set in October 2026 after a fictional ceasefire in Ukraine.
In the exercise, Russia massed 12,000 troops in western Belarus and fabricated a "humanitarian crisis" in Kaliningrad, accusing Lithuania of blocking supplies to the Russian exclave.
After Lithuania closed its border amid incidents attributed to Russian special forces, simulated Russian troops moved quickly.
Using drones to establish fire control and mining the Polish-Lithuanian border and advancing alongside civilians used as human shields, Russian forces captured the Lithuanian city of Marijampole and seized the Suwalki Gap, NATO's only land corridor to the Baltic states, within three days.
The Suwalki Gap is widely considered one of NATO's most vulnerable points, linking Poland and Lithuania and serving as a strategic chokepoint between Belarus and Kaliningrad.
The exercise involved 16 former senior officials and security experts and marked the first public war game of its kind in Germany.
Participants included former NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu; German lawmaker and former Bundeswehr officer Roderich Kiesewetter; former Inspector General of the Bundeswehr Eberhard Zorn; and Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, who played Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Gabuev said the simulation exposed weaknesses in Europe's response.
"We discovered that their reaction would not be adequate to defend NATO," Gabuev told Meduza, an independent Russian-language outlet based in Latvia.
He added that NATO participants "hadn't even prepared for such a scenario" and that the Russian side aimed to "split NATO" by creating military facts on the ground faster than the alliance could respond politically.
In the scenario, Germany's simulated government hesitated to use direct military force, opting instead for sanctions and maritime measures in the Baltic Sea amid concerns about escalation.
Poland mobilized but did not advance into mined Lithuanian territory.
The simulated United States declined to invoke NATO's Article 5 mutual defense clause and instead sought to mediate with Moscow, withholding 2,000 U.S. troops already stationed in the Baltics.
Ultimately, up to 5,000 European troops deployed to Lithuania under European Union auspices rather than through NATO, a move that underscored the alliance's paralysis in the scenario.
"Russia could become even more dangerous to NATO after some sort of peace in Ukraine, especially if it's a bad peace, if it is a Ukrainian capitulation," Lungescu told Die Welt, calling the exercise "very realistic, unfortunately."
The findings are likely to fuel debate among European leaders gathering for the Munich Security Conference, as President Donald Trump continues pressing European governments to shoulder more responsibility for Ukraine's defense and their own military spending.
For Kyiv, the implications are stark. If Berlin hesitates to defend a NATO member protected by Article 5, observers note, Ukraine, which lacks such treaty guarantees, could face even greater uncertainty in a future crisis.
Governments routinely conduct classified war games to test crisis scenarios.
By contrast, the Die Welt exercise was made public, offering a rare glimpse into how European leaders and former officials believe a fast-moving confrontation with Russia might unfold, and how difficult it could be to mount a unified response.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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