For Lithuanians or Poles, Russia's invasion of Ukraine did not come as a shock. It was always plausible — for more than a decade, Russia has rehearsed attacks on its neighbors during military exercises, going as far as a simulated "cut-off" of the Baltic states from the EU or simulated nuclear strikes on Warsaw or Berlin. As I write, children are dying, Ukrainian women and girls are being raped by Russian soldiers, civilians are shot in the back; schools, hospitals and UNESCO-protected cathedrals are being carpet-bombed. The death and deportation lists for thousands of Ukrainians have reportedly been drawn up, just as they were under Stalin and Hitler.
We in Lithuania always knew that Russia might be capable of this. We had a taste of a "light" version in 1991, with "only" 14 people killed and about a thousand injured. We constantly tried to forewarn our partners — but for the most part, they thought it was an exaggeration, an example of Russophobia. No, it was simply our fluency in their language; it was expertise and Russo-realism.
