US and UK troops launch MLRS and HIMARS rockets in Sweden's Gotland NATO drills

The strategic nature of Gotland's position is hard to overstate: it sits just 120 miles from the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and only 230 miles from Russia 's heavily militarised Kaliningrad exclave. Control of the island allows for the monitoring - and in time of conflict, control - of vast swathes of Baltic airspace and maritime traffic.