Russia has turned Gogland Island in the Baltic Sea into a forward operating base for special operations troops. Gogland is a small (21 square kilometers/8.1 square miles) island in the Gulf of Finland. It is 35 kilometers from Finland to the north, 55 kilometers from Estonia and Russia to the south and 180 kilometers from St Petersburg to the east. Gogland has changed owners several times over the last few centuries with Finland, Sweden and Russia taking possession after various wars. Originally, many centuries ago, the island was occupied by Finnish fishermen who eventually established two villages. Since World War II it has been Russian and more of a tourist attraction than a military base.
In early 2019 Russia began building five helipads, each large enough to handle the largest Russian military helicopter (the Mi-26). By mid-2019 Russia was using those helipads regularly to train special operations troops who would, presumably, stage raids against Finland or Estonia from Gogland. Anti-submarine helicopters can also operate from the Gogland heliport as well as search and rescue operations.
There it is:
If Russia goes to war with NATO, that might be a nice base for NATO (or the Finns) to take to help bottle up the Russian Baltic Sea warships in the St. Petersburg region.
And if NATO doesn't want it, it can be scoured clean with precision missiles and bombs, I suppose.
Still, that is very scary:
Count Scary is a Detroit thing.
