Russian military in Kaliningrad replaced with mobilized troops, says Lithuanian defense minister
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Speaking in an interview with local news outlet Delfi, Anušauskas noted that the Russian military personnel sent to Ukraine had not returned to the enclave.
"(But) you know, the threat has not disappeared,” Anušauskas said.
“Maybe the threat level is changing, but it has not disappeared. We saw that at one time the contingent in Kaliningrad Oblast decreased, because they withdrew some armed units or, as they said, battalion tactical groups, created these groups and sent them to Ukraine. They did not return. But they were replaced with mobilized people.”
According to him, Russia also sent some equipment from Kaliningrad Oblast.
Read also: Record number of Russian soldiers killed in November, says Ukraine’s defense ministry
"We see that Kaliningrad Oblast is like an unsinkable aircraft carrier of Russia in this region — it’s still there,” Anušauskas said.
“It has its capabilities, it has tactical nuclear weapons, right next to Lithuania. Sometimes it threatens Lithuania as well.”
Kremlin dictator Vladimir Putin announced a "partial mobilization" in Russia on Sept. 21. The call-up came after the Russian army suffered a heavy defeat in Ukraine, losing swathes of formerly occupied territory in Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast.
According to official data from the Russian Defense Ministry, the plan is to draft about 300,000 reservists. However, the part of the published decree ordering the mobilization dealing with the number of draftees is a blanked-out paragraph marked only “for official use.”
According to Russian opposition media, the secret paragraph of the plan details the mobilization of around one million Russians for the war in Ukraine.
After the announcement, Russians began to buy tickets abroad en masse to avoid participating in their country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Read also: UK intelligence lists typical problems of mobilized Russian troops
The Kremlin is disproportionately mobilizing people from national minorities in the east of the country, while fewer ethnic Russians from the big cities in the “European” west of the country are drafted. This could be because the Putin regime does not want to encourage mass protests in its major power centers – Moscow and St. Petersburg.
On Oct. 28, the Russian Minister of Defense reported on the completion of the mobilization and the involvement of 300,000 people.
The drafted Russian soldiers are already being killed in large numbers in Ukraine.
Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine
