In the days leading up to the Munich Security Conference on 13–15 February 2026, European media carried a run of scenario-based reporting on how a future security shock might unfold on NATO’s eastern flank.

Several of the most widely circulated pieces drew on staff exercises and crisis simulations designed to test decision-making under pressure rather than to forecast events.

One of the most discussed was a wargame run with the German Wargaming Center at Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg and published by Die Welt as a series of reports and podcasts. According to reporting by FOCUS Online, the exercise was conducted in December 2025 and then released in early February 2026, framed as a public-journalistic test of how Berlin and its allies might respond to a Baltic crisis involving both military and hybrid dimensions.

The scenario underpinning the exercise, as described by Die Welt, is set in late October 2026 after a ceasefire in Ukraine freezes the front line while leaving Russia in control of occupied territory. Following a Zapad 2026 context in Belarus, the simulated crisis begins with incidents attributed to Russian special forces, a Lithuanian border closure, and Moscow’s declaration of a “humanitarian crisis” in Kaliningrad accompanied by a demand for a transit corridor through Lithuanian territory.

In the simulation, Russian forces then establish what participants described as a secured land corridor across Lithuanian territory, linking Belarus with Kaliningrad through the Suwałki Gap, the only NATO land connection to the Baltic States. The Lithuanian city of Marijampolė appears in multiple accounts as the focal point because of its proximity to the Suwałki route and the logistics implications of controlling it.

Accounts of the game’s main finding centre on delays in allied decision-making rather than on battlefield outcomes. FOCUS Online reported that the United States, in the simulation, declined to trigger Article 5, while Germany avoided immediate military action and instead prioritised non-kinetic responses such as sanctions, maritime measures and domestic preparations. Poland is described as mobilising but not crossing into Lithuania without an agreed NATO course of action.

Participants and reporting also placed emphasis on how Russia could use standoff fires and unmanned systems to shape the operating environment without immediately escalating to large-scale ground combat. One element repeated in several summaries is drone-laid mining that restricts movement and raises the cost of rapid reinforcement. Other coverage highlighted the concept of “fire control” — using rockets, artillery and drones to hold key terrain at risk and deter intervention — as a central mechanism in the simulated Russian approach.

The exercise included a hybrid track aimed at German civil resilience. FOCUS Online and Deutschlandfunk both reported that the simulation incorporated cyber disruption and information operations affecting daily life, including online banking and cash access, alongside political pressure on decision-makers. The intent, according to Die Welt, was to expose decision patterns, blind spots and institutional constraints in a compressed timeline where initial hesitation can become the defining variable.

The participant list, as set out by Die Welt and summarised by FOCUS Online, included former NATO officials, retired military leaders and security specialists assigned to “blue” and “red” teams. Named participants in published accounts include former NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu in the role of NATO Secretary General, analyst Franz-Stefan Gady on the Russian side, and Russia specialist Alexander Gabuev in a senior Russian political role, alongside German political and military figures.

The publication of the wargame also drew criticism in Lithuania. Lithuania’s public broadcaster LRT reported that local observers argued the scenario downplayed Baltic agency and resistance, and portrayed a German brigade in Lithuania as ineffective while focusing on allied hesitation. The same report noted that the storyline relies on a humanitarian pretext linked to Kaliningrad and the movement of a convoy through the Suwałki route, followed by Russian troops, as the trigger for rapid territorial facts on the ground.

The timing of this debate intersects with wider anxieties that were visible at the Munich conference itself, where European leaders publicly discussed dependence on US political will and the need for stronger European capacity inside NATO structures. In that context, the Hamburg-linked wargame became a reference point not because it claimed to predict an attack, but because it modelled how delay, coordination problems and escalation fears can interact in the first two days of a crisis.