By Avril Silva, The New York Times, May 13, 2026
In a scrubby forest an hour outside the Lithuanian capital on a recent day this spring, excavators were digging ditches and tree harvesters were whirring in an effort to restore a waterlogged, mosquito-infested ecosystem that was drained in the Soviet era.
The reason is twofold: to help the climate and to defend the country from invasion.
The area was once a vast peat bog, and peat bogs are highly efficient at storing planet-warming carbon dioxide. They also happen to be very good at stopping tanks, because the spongy soil can’t support the weight of armored vehicles. The tanks get stuck and sink, often permanently.
Tomas Godliauskas, the Lithuanian vice minister of defense, said the bogs would form “an integral defensive line” when combined with other military tactics. The project also has the advantage of being relatively inexpensive compared with other measures such as tank ditches and minefields, he added.
Lithuania isn’t the only European Union country using bogs to deter a Russian invasion. Latvia and Finland, for example, are also seeking to restore bogs for both environmental and defense purposes. And Ukrainian bogs helped to delay Russian troops in a failed push toward Kyiv in 2022.
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