(RFE/RL) Russia is pouring troops and weapons — including missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads — into its western exclave of Kaliningrad at such a rate that the region is now one of Europe's most militarized places.
A NATO official, writing to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity, said that Moscow is stationing "thousands of troops, including mechanized and naval infantry brigades, military aircraft, modern long-range air defense units and hundreds of armored vehicles in the territory." […]
As the confrontation with the West heats up, Russia is finding Kaliningrad the "obvious place" to deploy more military hardware, explains Dmitry Gorenburg, a Russian military expert at the CNA Corporation think tank in Arlington, Virginia.
"From Kaliningrad you can just go right out and you're there; there's Sweden, Poland, Germany's not that far away," Gorenburg explains. "So, it's almost like you can set it up as a forward-operating base without leaving your own country's territory."
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