Commentary Clearly, Russian President Vladimir Putin is aligning the chess pieces for either an invasion of Ukraine or to deter NATO and the E.U. from considering Ukraine as a member. With over 125,000 troops and thousands of pieces of armor massed on the Russian/Ukrainian border, comes news this week that Russian forces will also be “conducting an exercise” in Belarus. This is highly significant because the exercises have the potential to create a Russian pinch point at the Suwalki Gap, the border between NATO members Lithuania and Poland, that lies between the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus. The gap is a roughly 40-mile stretch that, if invaded by Russia, could cut off Lithuania, as well as Estonia and Latvia, the two other Baltic States that are also NATO members. The gap has been described as NATO’s “hot spot” (pdf) for several years and has been of concern to me since at …