Home » World » Russia wants to fight with Lithuania for Kaliningrad? — TSN Exclusive — tsn.ua

Russia wants to fight with Lithuania for Kaliningrad? — TSN Exclusive — tsn.ua

The Kremlin has begun military blackmail in the heart of NATO’s eastern flank.

On Monday, June 20, the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Federation began unscheduled teachings missile and artillery units in the Kaliningrad region.

On Tuesday, June 21, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Nikolai Patrushev arrived in the Kaliningrad region for a meeting on national security, and the odious speaker of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova threatened Lithuania is almost a war, saying that soon “there will be no time for talking.”

Why are Russians so hot? The reason was the decision of Lithuania to restrict the transit (import and export) of transport trains with sanctioned goods to the Kaliningrad region through its territory. Vilnius did this for a reason, but in pursuance of EU sanctions against Russia, introduced in the fifth package in response to a large-scale war against Ukraine. The list includes cast iron, steel, jet fuel, fertilizers, vehicles, building materials, luxury goods, caviar and others.

There is a real hysteria in the Kremlin. The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned EU Ambassador Markus Ederer, threatening him with “retaliatory measures.” And before that, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Virginia Umbrasene, Chargé d’Affaires of Lithuania, calling the actions of Vilnius “an openly hostile provocation.”

Russian Senator Andrey Klimov went even further, saying that if Lithuania does not reverse its decision, then Moscow’s hands will be free, again hinting at the old Kremlin mantra about revoking Lithuania’s sovereignty.

As a result of his emergency visit to the Kaliningrad region, Patrushev said: “Russia will certainly react to such hostile actions. Relevant events are taking place in an interdepartmental format and will be adopted in the near future. Their consequences will affect the population of Lithuania.”

According to Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, there is nothing new in Russian rhetoric:

“I want to emphasize one simple thing: there is no blockade of Kaliningrad. Last weekend, sanctions came into force on some goods under the EU sanctions package. Transportation of all other goods can continue, as well as passenger transit.”

However, Moscow continues to increase the militaristic frenzy. The Russian media even published a list of five threatening strikes that could be inflicted on Lithuania.

The first is a “revocation” of Lithuania’s independence.

This “idea” is not new. A week before the restrictions on the transit of goods to the Kaliningrad region, the State Duma campaigned to vote for the abolition of the recognition of Lithuanian independence, arguing that Vilnius left the USSR illegally.

Second – withdrawal from the “agreements” with the EU on Lithuania.

Moscow claims that in the early 2000s they agreed to the recognition of Lithuania’s borders and its entry into the EU only in exchange for guarantees of maintaining uninterrupted transit to Kaliningrad. In the end, Russia may take an even more radical step. It would be nice if someone advised Putin to cancel the recognition of the whole EU.

Third – creation of the Suwalki corridor.

This means war with NATO. After all, the infamous Suwalki corridor passes through Belarus, and then right along the border between Poland and Lithuania to the Kaliningrad region.

Fourth – take the port of Klaipeda.

It also means war with NATO. However, their “wants” to take over the port in Moscow are argued by the fact that, they say, Klaipeda was handed over to Lithuania by Stalin. Something very reminiscent of Putin’s nonsense that Ukraine was invented by Lenin, or some other Russian tsar, or the Kremlin leader.

Fifth cut Lithuania off from electricity.

However, since May 22, Lithuania no longer imports electricity from the Russian Federation. So, there are problems with disconnecting from the Soviet energy ring connecting the Baltic countries, Belarus and Russia. However, the EU is helping Lithuania join the European energy system as soon as possible. Therefore, unfriendly actions on the part of Moscow will not become so painful for Vilnius.

However, there is another question as well. Are there any forces left in Russia to threaten anyone, given that its entire combat-ready army is being successfully destroyed on the battlefield in Ukraine? Apart from, of course, nuclear weapons, which they already threaten both Lithuania and Ukraine.

According to the Russian publicist and political scientist Andrey Piontkovsky, threats with nuclear weapons mean only one thing – in Russia there is no self-confidence at the conventional level.

“I don’t think that they will dare to take any military action (against Lithuania – ed.). Especially now, when their entire army is dissolving in the Ukrainian steppes. They are leaving Syria, from Nagorno-Karabakh … Therefore, breaking through the Suwalki corridor or something it’s impossible in this spirit. The only thing that worries me is that it’s not Lithuania that will make concessions, but the EU, to make some kind of compromise. As it was with paying for gas,” Andrei Piontkovsky told TSN.ua.

Military expert Oleg Zhdanov adds that Russia is unlikely to have the strength and imagination to respond simultaneously to Kazakhstan, Lithuania, and Ukraine, which are threatened by Moscow. The expert notes that if people in Russia were smart, they could say that they have a ferry crossing with Kaliningrad, so now they will carry everything by ferry. And there are two ferries. However, it turned out that these ferries are Finnish.

“Therefore, in order to add additional ferries to the route, they must be bought from the Finns. And Finland is unlikely to sell ferries to Russia today. They could replace the ferries with large landing ships of the Baltic Fleet. But today they are in the Black Sea. And some of them under repair, and one lies sunk somewhere in Berdyansk near the pier, it would be possible to use the large landing ships of the Northern Fleet and overtake them to the Baltic, but they are also in the Black Sea, so for Russia stopping transit to Kaliningrad is a huge problem. Therefore and such a hysterical reaction on their part,” sums up Oleg Zhdanov for TSN.ua.

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