There is an opinion that the Baltic Fleet is a fleet without a future, that it is outdated and it makes no sense to develop it. There is even a joke about the former fleet. It is worth dealing with this issue.
Some characteristics of the theater of operations of the countries located on it and their impact on the situation
The Baltic Sea is very small in size and shallow. Depths are everywhere measured in tens of meters, there are shallows. Geographically, the sea is locked - the exit to the open ocean from it passes through the Danish straits, controlled by a country unfriendly to Russia - Denmark. The Kiel Canal is controlled by Germany. Russia controls a few percent of the Baltic coast, and has only two naval bases on it - Kronstadt (this is, frankly, more than just a base, it has a large infrastructure) and the Baltic naval base. The latter is within the range of actual fire of the Polish army artillery.
The hydrology of the Baltic Sea significantly complicates the detection of submarines by acoustic methods, however, due to shallow depths, it is difficult for a submarine to hide from non-acoustic ones - primarily radar detection of wave traces on the water surface, above a moving submarine, detection of a wake, detection of heat generated by a submarine using thermal imaging equipment …
The Leningrad naval base in Kronstadt is located inside the narrow Gulf of Finland, the northern coast of which belongs predominantly to Finland, and the southern coast to the NATO member Baltic states. The Gulf of Finland can be very quickly blocked by the setting of minefields, which will cut off the North-West of Russia from sea communications. This will be an economic disaster for the country as a whole.
On the shores of the Gulf of Finland, there is the second most important and most populous city in Russia - St. Petersburg, with its port, as well as the most important export infrastructure, for example, the port of Ust-Luga.
Russia owns the Kaliningrad region, which is "halfway" from the Russian territory itself to the outlet from the Baltic Sea. Its population is over a million people and maintaining a stable connection with this territory is critically important for Russia and for the population of the Kaliningrad region. Communication with a territory that does not depend on third (hostile) countries is carried out exclusively by sea. The lines linking the Kaliningrad region with the rest of Russia are thus critical maritime communications that must remain free under absolutely all circumstances.
The population of the countries of the Baltic region is mostly hostile to the Russian Federation. This has both historically conditioned reasons, and is due to the completely insane and unimaginable for the average Russian, the intensity of anti-Russian propaganda. So, in Sweden, for example, they shoot dramatic feature films where the Russian military en masse poison the population of Sweden with rains contaminated with psychotropic substances, and this is taken seriously and does not cause any rejection among the mass audience. The attitude of the Poles also requires no comment, with the exception of the population of the regions bordering on the Kaliningrad region. The Finnish population is largely suspicious of Russia, although it is far from Poland-level hostility or Swedish paranoia.
The British and US navies have free and unrestricted access to the Baltic Sea thanks to the position of Denmark and can deploy almost any force there, the number of which is limited only by military expediency.
The risk of a full-scale war in the region is low - all countries that are more or less “friendly against” the Russian Federation and will not fight with each other, a full-scale attack on Russia should be considered unlikely due to its nuclear status (although it cannot be completely ruled out). At the same time, the intensity of anti-Russian propaganda in the media of some countries has already led to a partial loss of an adequate perception of reality by their population and political leaders, and this creates the risks of local limited-scale clashes.
These risks are especially increased by the fact that the US leadership, firstly, is interested in such clashes, and secondly, has an almost unlimited influence on the mechanisms of foreign policy decision-making in some countries, whose population is no longer able to assess the actions of their authorities adequately. Moreover, there have been opportunities for the introduction of mentally ill people, sick from a medical point of view, into the power structures of the same Poland, an example of which was the Minister of National Defense of Poland Anthony Macerevich some time ago. With such personnel, the acquisition by the United States, Britain or other adversary of Russia of its own kamikaze country, willing to sacrifice itself in the war with Russia, is a purely technical task, feasible at any time.
Specificity of military operations in the Baltic
The small distances between the bases of the opposing sides, as well as the large number of skerries where it is possible to mask and hide warships, led to the fact that in order to ensure, if not victory, then at least non-defeat in the Baltic, the belligerent side has only one way of action - decisive an offensive in order to neutralize the enemy's fleet as quickly as possible. This theater of military operations does not provide other options, the speed of any operations in this theater of operations is too high due to its smallness, and the enemy simply needs to be preempted in everything.
During the First World War, both Russia and Germany ignored this situation, and as a result, none of the sides in the Baltic region achieved a strategically significant positive change in the situation for themselves, which made all the losses incurred by the parties in the battles largely in vain. The Germans drew the right conclusions from this. During the Second World War, the very small German-Finnish forces, consisting in many respects of mobilized civilian ships, were able to effectively neutralize the incommensurably larger Baltic Fleet of the RKKF in the very first days of the war. The reason for this was the ownership of the initiative and the pace of operations ahead of the enemy.
The Baltic Fleet, in terms of its numerical superiority over any potential enemy in the region, could not oppose anything to this.
There were a lot of reasons for this state of affairs, today we can safely say that the Baltic Fleet, like the RKKF as a whole, was in a state of systemic crisis, which determined its effectiveness.
What was the Baltic Fleet supposed to do?
Use your light forces and aircraft for effective reconnaissance at great depths, and large surface ships to prevent German offensive mining operations in the Gulf of Finland. There was enough strength for this, the courage of the personnel, too, in the end, Soviet pilots opened fire on German ships for the first time even before the "canonical" moment of the outbreak of the war at 03.30 am on June 22, 1941. The command had an understanding of when the war would begin, the circle of future opponents was clear. If such measures were taken in advance, no blockade of the fleet would have happened and it could have had a completely different influence on the course of battles.
But nothing was done, for a complex set of reasons. The results are known.
Another feature of military operations in the Baltic is that it is the only theater of operations where light forces are actually capable of performing a wide range of tasks on their own, and where surface ships are more likely to engage in combat against other surface ships than anywhere else.
Another specific feature of the theater of operations, also stemming from its geography, is the possibility of waging a mine war on a scale that is nowhere else possible. For a long time, minelayers were a very common class of warships both in NATO and in neutral countries, and even today it is mine layers that are the main warships in the Finnish Navy.
The current state of the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Federation
At the moment, the Russian Baltic Fleet is still a "splinter" of the Soviet Baltic Fleet. This is not a union created for a task or tasks, it is the remnants of what was there before and what had to act in completely different conditions. There is no doctrine or concept of combat use behind the structure of the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Navy, behind its ship composition, behind the Naval Aviation forces available to the fleet. It's just "a lot of ships" and nothing more.
Here are some examples.
There is an obvious disregard for the submarine forces of the Baltic Fleet, at the moment they include one serviceable submarine B-806 "Dmitrov". Hypothetically, soon it will be joined by another company - Alrosa, but first it must get out of repair and make the transition to the Baltic.
There is a lack of understanding of what surface forces and where the fleet should have - the most valuable and largest ships of the fleet, project 20380 corvettes, are based in Baltiysk, where Polish artillery can get them. There is also the flagship of the fleet - the destroyer "Persistent", of course, when it comes out of repair.
The project 11540 "Fearless" TFR, which is under repair, may still come out of it without the "Uranus" missile system "relying" on it, however, there may still be options.
But there are no options with available anti-mine forces - even if the minesweepers that the Baltic Fleet has could fight modern mines, they would not be enough. But they can't. In general, the attitude of the Navy to the mine threat in the Baltic is not much different from the attitude to the mine threat in the North or the Pacific Ocean, but, as just said, in the Baltic, even geography favors mine warfare, and the neighbors are preparing for it.
In general, the Baltic Fleet is not ready for a serious war.
No wonder. On the website of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation the main tasks of the Baltic Fleet are defined as:
-protection of the economic zone and areas of production activities, suppression of illegal production activities;
- ensuring the safety of navigation;
- execution of foreign policy actions of the government in economically important regions of the World Ocean (visits, business visits, joint exercises, actions as part of peacekeeping forces, etc.).
Obviously, the Ministry of Defense assigns to the Baltic Fleet the nature of such a "ritual" formation, the purpose of which is "to appear, not to be." Hence the lack of a coherent strategy behind the available deliveries of new ships to the Baltic - they exist, but they are largely unsystematic in nature, not corresponding to the model of threats that Russia faces in this theater of operations.
Threats and challenges
The "model" war that can be waged against Russia today is the war with Georgia in August 2008. That is, this is a conflict during which Russia, under the guise of some kind of provocation, is attacked by a kamikaze country acting in the interests of third countries (for example, the United States), which inflicts losses in people and equipment on it, and then suffers a military defeat, but at the cost of inflicting on Russia colossal foreign policy damage. At the same time, the issue of military losses and political damage are interrelated - the less capable the military organization of Russia has shown itself, the higher the political damage. The fate of the kamikaze country does not matter, moreover, the more it "gets" the better for the beneficiary of the conflict. Thus, the harder Russia strikes back, the better for the beneficiary of the conflict (in a first approximation, this is again the United States and the bureaucracy of the NATO bloc).
The Baltic is an ideal place for such provocations. Firstly, due to the presence of at least four potential kamikaze countries - Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Secondly, thanks to the presence of a country that will not itself enter offensive hostilities against Russia, but will gladly play the role of a victim - Sweden. Thirdly, due to the presence of an extremely vulnerable point in Russia - the Kaliningrad region, separated from the territory of the Russian Federation. Fourthly, due to the fact that it is technically possible to concentrate the main efforts of the parties at sea, where Russia not only does not have adequate naval forces, but also does not understand how to use them, and what is the essence of naval warfare in principle.
What could be the object of such a provocation?
Kaliningrad region. Since a certain beneficiary needs a war with the participation of Russia, then it is necessary to attack a point that Russia cannot but defend. In 2008, these were peacekeepers in South Ossetia and its civilian population.
When in 2014 the Americans had to provoke the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian troops specifically fired at the civilian population of Donbass, since their owners believed that Russia could not stay on the sidelines in this case. Then they managed to evade an open invasion, limiting themselves to smaller-scale measures, but in the case of a hypothetical attack on Kaliningrad, this will not work out, they will have to fight back openly.
In what form can an attack take place? In any, depending on the scale of the conflict required by the beneficiary. So, in the minimum version, it can be artillery shelling of military facilities in Baltiysk from Poland, with a simultaneous propaganda pumping of its population that it is Russia that is firing at itself or that shells explode from the crooked-handed Russians, and they are trying to make the “forces of good” to blame . Any response from Russia to this will be outplayed as unprovoked aggression.
In a harsher version, such a shelling will be only the beginning, followed by a continuation, various kinds of retaliatory actions. At this stage, it is very convenient to transfer the war to the sea in order to exclude the possibility for Russia to realize its superiority on land.
The possibility of such a transfer is quite real. For this, it is enough that the subject of the conflict is not NATO, but that it is an independent operation of the Polish Armed Forces, for example.
In this case, Russia will find itself in a situation where it does not border the attacker on land. Moreover, in order to immediately set all the traps, the enemy can behave as follows - the former Soviet Baltic republics will verbally condemn the actions of the attacking side, Poland, and demand that it abandon the continuation of hostilities, initiating ceasefire negotiations with Russia. At the same time, foreign military contingents on the territory of the Baltic states will be reinforced.
Thus, Russia is losing the political basis for "breaking through" the corridor to Kaliningrad by force - on its way are the countries that supported it, albeit in words, and which are members of NATO, and have the right to apply for help from other countries of the bloc in accordance with the fifth article of the NATO Charter. And who do not participate in the attack on the Russian Federation. An attack on these countries in such conditions, and even when there are military units of other NATO countries that also do not openly participate in the conflict, will be political suicide for the Russian Federation, and potentially fraught with a truly big war with unpredictable consequences.
Further, the enemy can take any measures to blockade Kaliningrad from the sea, for example, massive offensive mining, to which the Russian Federation has nothing to respond to. Any blow from Russia to neutral countries is already a victory for the United States, Belarus's refusal to participate in the war and Russia's permission to unblock Kaliningrad from land is already a victory for the United States, and the threat of the use of nuclear weapons in Europe is a double victory, as it will clearly show to the whole world the incapacity of Russia even while defending its territory and its near-zero value as an ally.
In fact, absolutely any outcome of such a war will be a defeat for Russia and a victory for its enemies, except for one thing - the lightning-fast defeat by Russia of those forces that the enemy uses against it, without serious damage to its territory and population, and without damage to neutrals, whose role in such a scenario as not strangely NATO will act. But for this, Russia at least needs to maintain communications with Kaliningrad for itself, for the rapid transfer of large forces there, sufficient to decisively defeat the enemy, which requires a capable fleet, which does not exist and which the Russian Federation, apparently, does not plan to have in the Baltic at all.
Moreover, what is very important - the defeat of the enemy must be completed faster than the beneficiary of the conflict (for example, the United States) can deploy its forces in the region - by the time they arrive, everything must be finished
This scenario is far from the only one. There are options that are much more difficult to solve. If the sanctions pressure on the Russian Federation continues, it will be possible to bring the matter to a sea blockade of Russian ports, and the enemy dominating the sea may well be able to do this somewhere near the Danish straits. Moreover, it is possible to banally wrap any ships under neutral flags going to or from Russia, without touching ships under Russian, then from the point of view of international law, the Russian Federation will have no reason to intervene at all - neither its territory nor its ships have been touched.
The way out of such a crisis would be forcing Denmark to let ships through the straits under threat of causing damage anywhere else, and simultaneously deploying a grouping of the Northern Fleet in the North Sea and the Baltic in the Baltic in order to make blockade actions impossible. And again we are talking about the need to have a fleet adequate to the tasks.
The danger is a combination of several scenarios of hostilities and provocations. So, in the course of a crisis around Kaliningrad, NATO, regardless of Poland, may instigate another round of provocations with submarines in Swedish territorial waters (see. “Submarines and psychological warfare. Part 1" and “Submarines and psychological warfare. Part 2"), which may contribute to the involvement of Sweden either in a war with Russia or NATO or in blockade actions against the Russian Federation and in any case will cause significant political damage to Russia.
In addition to military crises, the Baltic Fleet also has peacetime tasks that are not related to the actual military operations in the Baltic. So, it is Baltiysk that is the military base closest to the Atlantic. The presence of a certain number of large surface ships in the Baltic in peacetime is quite rational, since they are closest to those areas of the world ocean where the naval groupings are currently operating (with the exception of the Mediterranean, which is the closest to get from the Black Sea). Actually, now this is the only task that the fleet is working out for real.
At the same time, with a mass of military scenarios, the presence of large surface ships in the Baltic will, on the contrary, be unjustified, and the Navy, on the contrary, should be ready to bring them to the North in advance or deploy them in the Atlantic together with the forces of other fleets.
It is important to understand that nowhere else is there such a gathering of anti-Russian countries as in the Baltic, nowhere else are there such opportunities for intrigues against Russia as in the Baltic. Both in Ukraine and around the Kuriles, bilateral confrontations are possible, one of the sides in which will be the Russian Federation. Anything is possible in the Baltic, and at an extremely high pace.
What will the victory of some country over Russia in the Baltic theater of operations be fraught with? Shutting down, even temporarily, of the economy of the second most important region in the Russian Federation - North-West Russia, together with St. Petersburg, as well as the loss of communication with the overseas territory of the Russian Federation - Kaliningrad, where, we repeat, more than one million people live. This is a catastrophe. True, if, due to the banal shortage of minesweepers or anti-submarine aircraft, it will be necessary to resort to nuclear weapons, it will not be much better.
Conclusions on the importance of the Baltic Fleet
In peacetime, the Baltic Fleet is important for the conduct of naval operations by surface ships in the Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. However, the limited bases and limited value of such ships in some variants of the conflict in the Baltic Sea require that the number of large surface ships be limited.
At the same time, the importance of submarines and light forces remains. The Baltic Sea is the only naval theater of operations where light forces can perform a wide range of tasks independently, without the support of large surface ships and nuclear submarines. They will, however, depend on aviation.
The Baltic region is the site of a potential military conflict, which will take on not quite usual forms - a high-intensity and high-tech conflict of a limited scale, in which one of the parties will pursue goals that are far from military victory, which will require from Russia adequate goal-setting. The peculiarity of hostilities will be their highest pace - on the verge of loss of control on the part of politicians, since in some cases the belligerent forces will have no choice but to maintain an ultra-high pace of operations.
A purely Russian specifics will be the need to be ready to deploy both the naval forces and the floating rear at the very first intelligence signs of any impending provocation. At the same time, since the issue of the possession of communications between Russian territories in the Baltic will be key, then not only the forces of the fleet, but also the aerospace forces and even units of the marines and airborne and ground forces should be ready for actions to destroy enemy ships, for example, by raids against its naval bases by land with evacuation by air or sea.
The key issue of victory will be the speed of naval operations and other operations against the enemy fleet.
During the Second World War, it was the Baltic theater of military operations that turned out to be the most difficult for the USSR. There is no particular reason to believe that the situation will be different today. It is already difficult - in the Baltic, Russia borders on a mass of hostile countries, and has only two naval bases, while Poland is slowly modernizing its Navy, and with their modest numbers already has three submarines in service, and surpasses the Russian Baltic Fleet in the number of minesweepers, and Sweden has a technological superiority over the Russian Federation in naval submarine weapons, anti-submarine ships and aircraft and a number of other weapons.
Also, the most important quality of the Baltic Fleet should be readiness for mine warfare, both in terms of defense and in terms of offensive mining. Everything is bad with this, individual ships are practicing mining, but exercises on massive installations are not carried out for a while, as before mine action, everything has already been said in principle.
It is also worth describing what the forces of the Baltic Fleet should be.
Baltic Fleet for the first half of the XXI century
As we remember from the article “ We are building a fleet. Theory and purpose , The fleet must establish supremacy at sea, if possible, then without a fight, if not, then by fighting with the enemy's naval forces, in which the latter must be destroyed or defeated and forced to flee.
The specificity of the Baltic is that the fleets of potential adversaries are mainly represented by surface ships. In addition, with a hypothetical deployment of the navies of non-Baltic countries in the region, it will also be carried out mainly by surface ships - for nuclear or large non-nuclear submarines, the Baltic is too small (although technically they may well operate there), the risks of losing them in an unfamiliar hydrological environment are very high … But large surface ships of the USA and NATO in the Baltic have been deployed more than once, including aircraft carriers - the last time it was a Spanish UDC with Harrier II aircraft. Thus, Russia, with its budgetary constraints and insufficient resources, should have the forces and means of destroying surface ships in the Baltic Fleet.
The most logical for the Baltic is the massive use of light forces as the main strike means, and slightly more powerful strike ships to protect them. The small size of the Baltic Sea allows fighter aircraft to be on duty in the air to protect naval strike groups. In this situation, the "composition" of forces looks like this: large NKs (for example, Project 20380 corvettes or other multifunctional corvettes upgraded to increase the effectiveness of air defense and anti-aircraft missile defense) under the protection of fighters from the shore are forces that ensure combat stability (consider - defense against any enemy forces and assets) to light forces performing the main strike missions, as well as defense against any enemy forces and assets of ships of the floating rear.
What kind of light forces should it be? Taking into account the need to strike at surface ships, these should be high-speed and seaworthy missile boats, inconspicuous in the radar range. Moreover, an important caveat must be made. There can be no question of turning such a boat into a Death Star. It should be a simple and cheap ship of small displacement. It should not be a pity to lose it (now we are not talking about the crew). But it has to be really fast. For example, the old Turkish missile boats of the "Kartal" class with a displacement of two hundred and a half tons carried four anti-ship missiles and had a maximum speed of 45 knots on four not very powerful diesel engines. More importantly, they could move at high speed over long distances, so, at 35 knots, these ships could travel 700 miles and with a high degree of probability nothing would break.
Of course, this example from the past is not entirely relevant - today we need significantly more powerful electronic weapons. But, nevertheless, these missile boats are a good demonstration of the approach to light strike forces in the form in which they have the right to exist. Our "Lightning" Project 1241 in any of its modifications is "ideologically" very close to the desired version of the ship, but they lack stealth in the radar and thermal ranges, and, moreover, they are most likely too expensive, given the gas turbine power plant. You need something simpler, cheaper, less noticeable, smaller, and maybe just a little faster. And in principle, while "Lightning" is in service, the development of such a cheap missile boat is quite real.
In no case should such a ship be confused with an RTO. The modern MRK of project 22800 "Karakurt" costs about ten billion rubles, which completely deprives it of its meaning as an attacking "one" - it is corny too expensive to climb under fire on it. It also lacks speed compared to a rocket boat. And as part of the "heavy" forces - he is too specialized. There is no PLO, there is no anti-torpedo protection, a helicopter cannot be put on it … They, of course, will have to be used in this capacity while they are in service, but gradually the role of carriers of "Caliber" in the Baltic should be taken over by multifunctional corvettes and submarines, and if it comes to that - ground launchers. As for "Buyanov-M", these are pure floating batteries, and they are able to influence the outcome of an armed struggle to the very minimum extent.
The "heavy" forces will engage in battle when the enemy tries to reach the "lungs" with a massive attack, or, alternatively, in case of a successful attempt to break through the third party's naval forces through the Danish Straits, if it is decided not to let it go there. And if it turns out to establish supremacy at sea, especially with the destruction of enemy submarines, then such ships will be able to accompany the landing detachments, support them with the fire of their guns, provide the basing of helicopters, including shock ones, capable of operating along the coast, ensure the blockade of enemy ports, air defense of ship formations, airborne troops and convoys.
They will be able to prevent the enemy from reaching the areas where the anti-submarine search is being conducted, and they themselves will be able to conduct it in the future, when instead of the IPC of project 1331 there will be other ships, whatever they may be.
We need submarines, but smaller and smaller than what we are doing today or even what we are planning to do. Moreover, it is critical for the Baltic to have a VNEU - the boats will have at least a couple of days to deploy while the enemy adapts to hostilities, then his aircraft will hang over the sea and, firstly, it is unlikely that it will be possible to surface at least under the RDP to charge the batteries, and Secondly, it will be very relevant to carry out a separation from the enemy's anti-submarine forces in a submerged position, and for a submarine devoid of VNEU this will mean a full consumption of the supply of electricity in literally one hour. The presence of VNEU is critical for the Baltic Sea.
The boats must be small - so the Poles are armed with diesel-electric submarines of the "Cobben" class, having an underwater displacement of 485 tons. It is the small dimensions that are critical to reduce the likelihood of detecting the boat by non-acoustic methods. And it's easier to work on the shallows. Against this background, our "Halibuts" with their 3000 and more tons in the Baltic look somewhat strange. It should not be understood as a call for the massive construction of midget boats, but definitely for the Baltic, our "Halibuts", "Varshavyanka" and "Lada" are too large. The Amur-950 project with VNEU would be close to some ideal submarine in terms of its displacement and dimensions, for the conditions of the Baltic Sea, if someone would have made both it and VNEU.
In aviation, Ka-52K helicopters can play a huge role, but subject to replacing their radars with more efficient ones. If on warships operating in the distant sea and ocean zones it is a pity for them to have a place - helicopters in autonomous formations should be able to fight submarines, then in the Baltic such highly specialized fighters will be quite in place, especially if it is possible to debug their interaction with surface ships … Due to the small distances in the theater of operations, they will also be able to operate from the shore, including the rotation "shore-ship-shore".
This, of course, does not negate the need for naval assault aviation regiments on the Su-30SM and for a full-fledged base anti-submarine aviation, which, alas, we do not have today. If necessary, such forces, if they were available, could be transferred from other fleets.
It is especially important to pay attention to mine warfare. We must plant at least hundreds of mines every day of hostilities. For this, submarines, and aviation, and landing ships, and the very "light forces" - missile boats can be involved. Nothing prevents from having at each place under five or six mines of a different type. In the end, during the Great Patriotic War, torpedo boats quite laid mines. Moreover, since we are building simple and cheap boats, there is nothing to prevent the “light” forces from having high-speed mine-laying boats, even simpler and cheaper than a missile boat, equipped with a primitive complex of self-defense means and armed with mines. Such boats could well act at the moment of strike on the coast of our aviation, and under its cover, and provide a high-speed and accurate placement of a large number of mines of various types, such that, for technical reasons, aviation cannot deploy.
This fact is also indicative - out of forty-five warships of the Polish Navy, twenty are minesweepers. Apparently, we will first have to come to the same proportions, and then realize that in the old days, minesweepers absolutely correctly and naturally had more powerful weapons than today. We will have to "return to the true path" in this matter too.
What tasks can such a fleet perform?
To seize supremacy at sea faster than the beneficiaries of the conflict will introduce their naval forces to the Baltic and will put the Russian Federation in front of the need to accept the unwanted escalation of the conflict, destroy the opposing surface fleets, leaving the anti-submarine forces (corvettes, IPC, as long as they are, and aviation, when it is reanimated) a few enemy submarines in a theater of operations.
Ensure the escorting of convoys and landing detachments through communications provided by the Baltic Fleet forces. Ensure the impossibility of the blockade of Kaliningrad, whoever tries to carry it out. To be in time, if necessary, with the help of curtains from their submarines, minefields, the deployment of fleet forces at an advantageous distance for an attack, to ensure that the passage of forces of third countries through the Danish straits is prevented.
Thus, to create a favorable operational regime throughout the Baltic, to provide opportunities for carrying out amphibious operations against an enemy that does not want to surrender and continues to resist.
In general, to carry out the usual naval work for its intended purpose.
And in peacetime, the ships of the Baltic Fleet go to Cuba, Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean anyway, you just need to use their capabilities correctly and wisely there.
And certainly there can be no question of treating the Baltic Fleet as in the well-known naval joke: "The Baltic Fleet is a former fleet." The Baltic is our most difficult theater of war, and potentially the most problematic, with vulnerabilities like the coastal city of St. Petersburg (does Russia have a vulnerability comparable to this at all?) And frankly crazy neighbors. This means that, in the correct version, the Baltic Fleet should continue to prepare for heavy wars, both organizationally and technically. After all, traditionally, the most difficult naval wars of Russia take place here. The future in this sense is unlikely to be very different from the past.
