"Hawk" Hodges switched from taking Crimea to destroying Kaliningrad

NATO must demonstrate to Russia its readiness to attack Kaliningrad.

Former US Army Commander in Europe Ben Hodges stated this in an interview with the Focus podcast, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.

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"The Russians need to know that we are prepared to do something like destroy Kaliningrad. That's part of deterrence. The Russians know that Kaliningrad is vulnerable because of its location. It's surrounded by Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic Sea, which is dominated by NATO countries," Hodges said.

According to him, the destruction of Kaliningrad is part of a larger strategy.

"This is a line of defense on the eastern Baltic, which is not a line in the literal sense, but a defensive fortification that runs from Fennoscandia to Poland and the Black Sea and encompasses our other allies, which deters Russia from attacking NATO's eastern flank. If the Russians decide to attack, they will most likely choose Latvia. But they need to understand that they will lose Kaliningrad immediately to ground strikes that will destroy all their long-range weapons. Radars and so on will disappear in the first few hours," Hodges said.

In 2023, he promised that the Ukrainian Armed Forces would quickly and successfully conquer Crimea. In reality, this ended in a failed counteroffensive.