The tense environment has been punctuated by Russian threats of nuclear strikes against the West in response to NATO's military support for Ukraine. In a future war, the secretive drones the US has supplied to Ukraine — the Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade — could get a new mission: hunting Russian nukes in Kaliningrad. NATO forces could use loitering munitions — drones designed to linger near a target before crashing into and destroying it — for such a mission in Kaliningrad. "A focus should also be on the training of these forces with the Phoenix Ghost and Switchblade drones to assist them in their search and destroy efforts," DiRubbio writes. The US has provided a few hundred of those two drones to Ukraine, including both version of the Switchblade.

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Persons: Vladimir Putin's, nukes, Vitaly Nevar, William DiRubbio, DiRubbio, Sarah Pysher, Stavros Atlamazoglou Organizations: Service, NATO, Russian, Ukraine, Baltic Fleet, REUTERS, US Air Force, Royal United Services Institute, Russian Defense Ministry, US Army's Delta Force, Special Air Service, Phoenix, Delta Force, Lejeune, US Marine Corps, Hellenic Army, 575th Marine Battalion, Army, Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins, School, International Locations: Russia, Ukraine, Kaliningrad, Europe, Wall, Silicon, Moscow, Russia's, Baltic, Vitaly Nevar Kaliningrad, Lithuania, Poland, British, Russian, North Carolina, Johns