Lithuania bolsters defenses as Baltic states brace for potential Russian threat

By Robert Stanley | 2025-05-14

Lithuania is significantly strengthening its border defenses with trenches, drones and land mines as part of broader Baltic efforts to discourage a potential Russian invasion.

The country will spend €1.1 billion ($1.25 billion) over the next decade on these defensive measures, the Defense Ministry said in a statement May 5.

That vow follows an earlier commitment in January to increase defense spending to 5%-6% of GDP annually from 2026 to 2030.

Approximately €800 million ($898 million) will be allocated for antitank mines and their systems, according to the Defense Ministry.

Additional funds will support anti-drone defenses, natural barriers, surveillance and early warning systems, with backup fortifications planned for cities and towns situated between Lithuania's borders with Belarus and Russia's Kaliningrad enclave.

"Lithuania, together with Latvia and Estonia, is also implementing the Baltic Defense Line project," Deputy Minister of National Defense Tomas Godliauskas said in the May 5 statement.

"Together with Latvians and Estonians, we are creating a set of counter-mobility measures along NATO's eastern border that will allow us to effectively disrupt and stop a potential enemy advance across the border."

Strengthening key roads

Lithuania's approximately 879km-long border with Belarus, a close Russian ally that served as a staging ground for the 2022 Ukraine invasion, and its 274km-long frontier with Russia's militarized Kaliningrad territory make it particularly vulnerable.

Between these borders lies the strategically critical Suwalki Gap, a narrow 70km-long corridor that connects Lithuania to Poland and serves as the only land bridge to the Baltic states.

The country is reinforcing two key roads crossing the Suwalki Gap: the Via Baltica running from Warsaw to Tallinn, and a shorter road connecting Vilnius to the Polish city of Augustow. Workers are strengthening both routes to ensure they can support heavy military equipment needed for Baltic defense.

"These roads [are] critical to us from a security and defense perspective," Godliauskas told POLITICO in April. "They've always been part of our civil-military planning as key ground routes for allied support during a crisis."

Military strategists say a Russian attack on the Baltics would likely attempt to cut off the region from NATO allies by advancing simultaneously from Belarus and Kaliningrad.

This threat explains Lithuania's emphasis on antitank defenses and its decision, along with Estonia and Poland, to withdraw from the Ottawa Accord banning antipersonnel mines. Critics note that minefield maps often disappear during conflicts, leaving abandoned mines to endanger civilians long after wars end.

Initiative with Latvia, Estonia

Backing up Lithuania's defensive posture are approximately 700 German troops already stationed in the country, part of a 4,800-strong contingent that will be permanently deployed over the next two years.

This force would serve both as a tripwire for broader NATO engagement and to help Lithuania resist an initial Russian invasion.

The Lithuanian efforts are integrated into a larger initiative with Latvia and Estonia to build "counter-mobility measures" along the Baltics' entire 1,633km-long eastern border with Russia.

Working with Poland on the "East Shield" project, Lithuania is fortifying the Suwalki Gap with 27 engineering depots containing dragon's teeth, hedgehogs, Spanish Horse barriers, razor wire, roadblocks and shipping containers that can be filled to impede tanks and attacking vehicles.

Lithuania also is leveraging natural features for defense, preserving forests within 20km of its borders, planting trees along roads and expanding irrigation and drainage ditches into antitank trenches.

These defensive measures by the country of 2.6 million reflect growing concerns throughout NATO's eastern flank about Russian President Vladimir Putin's apparent ambition to rebuild Russia's former sphere of influence.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia declared independence from Moscow in 1991, while Poland severed its ties with Russia in 1989 and formally exited the Warsaw Pact in 1991.

In December, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda warned of an "emerging axis of evil" comprising Russia, Belarus, China, Iran and North Korea, calling for a "united stance" among Western allies against this strengthening authoritarian alliance.