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And only a thin corridor some 60 miles long between Lithuania and Poland separates Russian forces in Belarus from Kaliningrad, the Russian territory on the Baltic Sea that is stuffed with. The Soviet occupation of the Baltic countries was interrupted by Nazi German invasion of the region in 1941. How can NATOs problems in the Baltic region be fixed? Currently, U.S. troops are part of NATOs Baltic rotational battlegroups, which are led by Germany, Britain, and Canada. If Putin had hoped to weaken NATO, the very opposite has happened, with Finland and Sweden on the cusp of joining the transatlantic military alliance. Unlike Ukraine, they had joined NATO in the early 2000s, and now enjoy the. But even with those reinforcements, NATO forces in the Baltics likely could not defeat a large-scale Russian invasion, Baltic leaders warn. Once Russia has completed its conquest of Ukraine, that question will acquire . Usernames may be updated at any time and must not contain inappropriate or offensive language. Culturally, the Estonians were strongly influenced by the Germans, and traces of the original Finnish culture have been preserved only in folklore. Country by country, this page offers an overview of the links to national information servers and to the website of national delegations to NATO. Military mobilitythe vital business of moving large numbers of troops and equipmentis patchy too. NATO as an integral structure will cease to exist." That would lead to a "fundamental collapse of the West" with some countries even willing to accept missile strikes on Poland and the Baltic . Russian tanks were intended for invasion of NATO countries, Estonian FM The Latvian and Lithuanian languages belong to the Indo-European language family and are the only extant (widely recognized) members of the Baltic language group (or more specifically, Eastern Baltic subgroup of Baltic). In nearby Poland, the United States has a more substantial presence of 5,000 service members. Between 1994 and 2004, the BAFTA free trade agreement was established to help prepare the countries for their accession to the EU, rather than out of the Baltic states' desire to trade among themselves. NATO Is Dangerously Exposed in the Baltic. In all three countries virtually everyone among the titular nationalities speaks the native tongue as their first language, which is remarkable in light of the massive Russian immigration to the Baltic states during the second half of the 20th century. Overall population fell in each of the Baltic states in the years following independence, primarily because of the return emigration of Russians to Russia, as well as other out-migration to western Europe and North America. However, in June 1940 they were invaded and occupied by the Soviet. Latgalian and Samogitian are considered either separate languages or dialects of Latvian and Lithuanian, respectively. There are other countries that border the Baltic Sea, such as Poland, Finland, and Sweden, but when people refer to the Baltic States, they are usually just referring to the three countries that sit on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which are Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.