US Army in Europe Commander: NATO will be unable to defend Baltics if Russia attacks
The Commander of the United States Army Europe, Lieutenant General Frederick Benjamin Hodges, believes that NATO will not be able to protect the Baltic States if Russia attacks them.
“Russia could invade the Baltic States faster than we could come there to defend them," the Lieutenant General said in an interview with the German weekly Die Zeit, published on June 22.
Hodges said that he agrees with the estimate of military analysts that the Russian troops could capture the capital cities of the Baltic countries within 36-60 hours.
In the interview the Lieutenant General also spoke about the mistakes made by the NATO troops during the Anakonda-2016 military exercises that took place in Poland between June 7 and June 17. In his opinion the deployment of the heavy armor from the Western Europe to Eastern Europe was not quick enough.