No one heard the war begin. There were no tanks or armored vehicles – only drones. There were no loud statements – only the ringing silence of morning: no lights, no communications, no navigation. NATO did not even have time to convene an emergency meeting before key cities in Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia were already occupied by Russia. It all happened faster than it took to post the first tweet about the invasion. 06:04, Vilnius, Lithuania. It all started when the streetlights had not yet gone out. First, mobile communications disappeared, the power went off. Within minutes, the sky above Vilnius was filled with drones, silent as shadows. Within half an hour, the city center was completely blocked by unmarked trucks, armored pickups, and men in uniform that lacked insignia speaking Russian. 07:12, Narva, Estonia. While Estonian radio was reporting on the overnight storm in Tallinn, Narva was already cut off. The bridge was the first to fall. According to eyewitnesses, Russian UAVs disabled the supporting pillars and then blew up the cable infrastructure. The city was left without electricity and communications. To the sound of sirens, the Estonian military tried to repel the invaders, but it was too late. 08:00. Adazi, Latvia. The NATO foreign contingent was unable to resist. The military base was blocked without a fight: from the air by drones and from the ground by civilian trucks. Communications are down. The possibility of preventing a Russian invasion of the Baltic states, which analysts had warned about, vanished – in just one day. This is not a scene from a war movie. It is a repeat of history. In 1940, Russian tanks were already entering Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia under slogans of “friendship between peoples” amid silence from the West. This scenario can still be avoided. A window to Europe The current situation in Europe creates a unique but temporary “window of opportunity” for Moscow to conduct a military blitzkrieg in the Baltic region. Firstly, Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which formally guarantees collective defense, has effectively lost its deterrent effect due to US unwouldingness to take immediate and radical action in Europe. Washington is increasingly showing fatigue with “endless subsidizing” of European security, and isolationist sentiments among the American elite are only growing stronger. Secondly, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are incapable of repelling a full-scale Russian invasion on their own. The Baltic states’ defense capabilities are sufficient only for police operations. NATO military contingents stationed in the region do not exceed 5,000 troops. This is not enough even to deter an invasion, let alone repel it. Thirdly, the provision of military assistance from the rest of Europe is seriously hampered. On the one hand, there is the vulnerable Suwalki Corridor between Poland and Lithuania, which could be exposed to attack from both Russia’s Kaliningrad region and Belarus, Russia’s vassal state. On the other hand, there is the Baltic Sea, where the narrowest point is twice as wide as the English Channel. Fourthly, the armies of European countries are currently unprepared for large-scale war, both technically and psychologically. Their potential may grow, but real changes would only begin to be felt in a couple of years, when the ambitious EU defense program is fully launched. It is this “gap” that is a critical factor for the Kremlin: if not now, then never. And finally, the Russian army is seriously depleted by the war in Ukraine, and its capabilities are limited. With active support for Kyiv from the West, there is virtually no chance of a turnaround in this campaign in favor of Russia. But this is precisely what could push the cornered rats in the Kremlin to take a radical step: to try to change the losing situation by shock destabilization of Europe, where no one is expecting a blow. Operation “We Can Do It Again” Russia’s invasion of the Baltic states would be lightning fast. The points of entry would be Vilnius, Daugavpils, and Narva. The main goal of the Russians would be to cause psychological shock and paralyze the will to resist. If the current situation does not change, Moscow could capture key cities in the region in a single day. They would become “hostages” whose occupation would deprive NATO of its air superiority and slow down any military decisions. Europe has never seen an invasion like this before. Russia would rely on drones and electronic warfare to cause chaos and panic. The use of heavy equipment would be kept to a minimum. Civilian vehicles would be initially deployed making identification difficult. NATO aircraft would be powerless due to the inability to distinguish between invaders and civilians and the ban on striking occupied settlements. Communications and navigation would be disabled in the first hours to disorient local armies and NATO forces as much as possible. Heavy military equipment belonging to the region’s defenders would be destroyed by drones or would be unable to leave their hangars. Kaliningrad, in turn, would become a springboard for pressure on Poland, deterring it from actively intervening to defend Lithuania until it is completely occupied by Russia. As a result, the EU’s political leadership could face both the impossibility of de-occupying the Baltic states and NATO’s “impotence.” The West would not start a nuclear confrontation with Russia over the Baltics. As a result, Moscow would be able to force Brussels to negotiate over the fate of the Baltics. This would include changing the spheres of influence in Europe in favor of the Kremlin. The end of this sad story would be the conclusion of an agreement with Moscow on “arms control” and the cessation of EU support for Ukraine. Stopping the blitzkrieg The Russian blitzkrieg in the Baltic states could only be stopped by preventive and unconventional measures aimed at destabilizing the enemy’s operational rear. This primarily concerns Belarus, through which the offensive would highly likely be launched. The West has already warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about this. A key deterrent could be Ukraine’s open (or tacit) readiness for military operations in the Belarusian direction, particularly along the Pinsk-Ivatsevichi-Bialystok line. This would pose a direct threat to the flank of Russian and Belarusian forces potentially involved in an attack on the Baltic states and force Moscow to spread its resources. Moscow would not survive another “Kursk operation.” In addition, it is worth considering the formation of joint Ukrainian Polish armed units in the Grodno and Bialystok areas, under the official pretext of protecting NATO logistics corridors. This would increase political pressure on Minsk and block the northern flank of a possible invasion. Another step would be to deploy a Ukrainian military contingent of up to 10,000 troops in Lithuania, in the Dubingiai area, under the cover of international exercises. Such a deployment would create a factor of unpredictability in the region and complicate operational planning on the part of Russia. This is because the occupiers would have to fight a Ukrainian army that is battle-hardened and motivated to resist the Russians. The goal of all these preventive steps would be to shift the center of tension from the Baltic states to the territory of the aggressor’s client state. Only in this case would Russia face not passive containment, but active strategic uncertainty forcing it to rethink its plans. The bottom line is that 2025 is a year of strategic vulnerability for the EU and NATO and a “window of opportunity” for Moscow. And if Europe does not begin to strengthen its defenses immediately, the next “Vilnius morning” may leave no time for a response. The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.