The exclave of Kaliningrad is of immense strategic importance to the Russian armed forces and host to a number of its air assets, as Vladimir Trendafilovski explains.
FORCE REPORT Russian Air Power in Kaliningrad
ORIGINALLY A German territory, Kaliningrad was part of East Prussia, but annexed by the Soviets immediately after World War Two. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the region (which had the formal status of an Oblast – a region of the Russian Soviet Federal Republic) became a federal subject of the newly constituted Russian Federation – a coastal exclave on the Baltic Sea, surrounded by Poland and Lithuania.
Kaliningrad gained strategic importance during the Cold War, when the headquarters of the Baltiyskiy Flot (BF, Baltic Fleet) moved here and its largest port was built in the adjacent city of Baltiysk.
In contrast to the Black Sea Fleet, most of the BF’s assets remained under Russian control in 1991 and were assigned to the Voyenno-Morskoy Flot Rossiyskoy Federatsii (VMF, Russian Navy).
After 1991 a large number of units of the various branches of the Vooruzhyonniye Sily Rossiyskoy Federatsii (VS RF, Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) in the region were disbanded or downsize…
