Europe’s new defensive plan will literally bog down Russia’s tanks
Donald Trump strangely, the Russian forces’ tanks would have reached Kiev in Four hours if he had not been stuck in the mud ”.
The truth was not that simple. In February 2022, the Moscow troops walked to the capital of Ukraine, and Ukraine played an desperate gambling. He drowned the Irpin River in the north of Kiev and made a hole in a dam that has long been in a waters of a lost wetland basin. Soil turned into a helpful, supreme, impassable swamp protect the city Russian tanks are thick, as they cut with black mud.
Hard measure sent a message: Let nature fight for you in war. Countries on the border of NATO took notes.
Polish and Finnish officials said that the telegram now said to restore heavy vehicles such as tanks and swamps of their nations to sink heavy vehicles such as climate change at the same time.
Russian forces attack on Kiev, by Swampland outside the city Stysyignhed – Serhii Mykhalchuk/Getty Images
Rich swamps rich in peats, from the Baltic states, opposite the Suwalki gap and from the Finnish North Pole to Eastern Poland, the big EU territory.
Swamps of nature The most effective carbon dioxide tanks – But if they discharge, they significantly fuel global warming and leave centuries -old carbons to the atmosphere.
Half of the swamps in Europe have been disappeared or transformed into agricultural lands, and in response, the EU prioritizes 30 percent of broken turbans until 2030 to combat climate change and promote biological diversity.
However, the idea of restore swamps and swamps as a defense strategy is new.
Poland’s £ 1.9 billion, Eastern Shield Arbitration Project, forests close to peat and borders will be revived and expanded.
Polish is a obvious ally of any action that improves the natural environment, Eastern shield elements in the border areas, ”Polish Spokesman said.
In Finland, a swamp restoration pilot began close to the Russian border and learned Telegraph.
“Wetlands remained an important defense strategy in Europe.
“In the 18th and 19th centuries, they provided natural boundaries and valued as defense obstacles in the 18th and 19th centuries, and now we know this importance for wetlands.
The traitor said that the land filled with water was ılmış not fully published for heavy vehicles ”. This year, it was clear that four US troops were deployed in Lithuania. killed When they dragged a 63 -ton armored vehicle to a swamp during an educational exercise.
Environmentalists, politicians and defense officials see more and more opportunities when environmental protection policies intersect with defense strategies.
Pauli Aalto-Setälä, a deputy at Finland’s National Coalition Party and former tank officer, became the first politician to restore the government to restore the wetlands covering the eastern border as a bilateral climate and defense strategy.
“There are not many things agreed on environmental activists and defense officials, and we find a big common ground here,” he said.
Boggy Terrain is about one third of the land mass of Finland, half of whom are already exhausted. However, the country is driving a large -scale restoration.
Finland’s Boggy land can provide a natural defense against the Kremlin’s tank columns – through Olivier Morin/AFP Getty Images
Mr. Aalto-Setälä said that the restoration tests close to the border have already begun.
“Unlike the re -afforestation that will last for decades, it can be done relatively easy and quickly.” He predicted that leaving the swamps on the eastern border of the country once again under water may last for a year.
Pekka Toveri, a Finnish MEP and a retired general, stated the difficulties faced by the Soviet tanks when they invaded in 1939 when they invaded Finland’s swamp and forest land, “Nature has always been an important part of Finland’s defense.”
He said that the back of the swamps would be seen as “winning”. “It is a good example of innovation in defense, and I hope it will be taken seriously.”
Retired general, Moscow’s maneuverability in Ukraine’s failures in Ukraine, argued that much can be learned. “Russia has experienced great problems in crossing even narrow water barriers. The simple and cheap measure of reconnect wetlands will do the same here.”
Finnish soldiers are involved in the landscape during Russia’s invasion in 1939 – Hulton Archive
The Baltic states, which share the 600 mile limit with Russia and Belarus, are also listening to the offers.
Estonia’s Climate Ministry said to Politico actively investigating whether he would restore his swamps and swamps to help Politico against a Russian attack and fight against global warming.
Together with Lithuania and Latvia, the country is already planning to integrate existing peat areas into new ones. Baltic defense line Although plans have not yet included peat restoration, to keep Russia away.
However, swamp -based defense plans are useless in every European NATO country. For example, Germany seems to be much less willing to evacuate or destroy most of the peat areas.
The reconnection of wetlands from the Federal Ministry of Defense may be an advantage and disadvantage for one’s own operations.
If NATO is attacked, the alliance forces should move quickly from Germany to the east if NATO is attacked.
However, through floods and swamps, çocuk preventing the movements of an enemy ”has been used in the war for a long time and is still a applicable option today,” he said.
In addition, there are other significant problems, including specially owned lands and in some regions, including forestry or agriculture, and potentially influencing thousands of livelihoods.
. Flood of the IRPİN basin He helped to win the war for Kiev, but it was extremely ecologically destructive and painful for those whose homes and lands were flooded.
For the time being, the suggestions of Finland and Poland will focus on state -owned lands, but if plans are reality and scaled, this problem cannot be avoided.
Polish ecologist Prof Kotowski argued that despite the resistance, NATO’s swamps were not a good reason not to revive the defense shield.
“War is not what we want to relate to our agenda of biological diversity of scientists, but we have to restore peat areas, and now there is a new driving force to do it,” he said.
