Vilnius applies sanctions: banned the transit of goods to the territory of the Federation. Medvedev: by the time Ukraine has finished the accession process, perhaps the EU will have already disappeared
Thus the wars begin. This is what it comes down to. Fearing that the wishes of the propagandist prince of the Kremlin will come true, that Vladimir Solovyev by now a well-known face also on Italian televisionwhich every time he hears about the Baltic countries begins to rail clamoring for immediate invasion on even days, nuclear annihilation on odd days.
–
Strip of land
The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad has been called in a thousand ways since the war until today. Buffer zone, military outpost, strong point or Achilles’ heel, because it can be used as a direct threat to Europe but can also find itself completely isolated in the event of a conflict. What appeared certain from the beginning that that narrow strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, a legacy of the Second World War, could soon become the measure of the new geopolitical instability generated by the invasion of Ukraine. Judging by recent events, the fever is rising. Last Saturday, the Lithuanian government banned the transit of goods subject to international sanctions to Russia by rail on its territory. A measure that in an undeclared manner paralyzes Moscow’s traffic towards the Kaliningrad region, a small piece of Russia overlooking the Baltic Sea, not surprisingly home to the nuclear-capable Iskander missilesbut without a land border with the mother country, closed by two countries joining the European Union.
–
The Russians: Low blow
State media speak of a low blow or even casus belli. Governor Anton Alikhanov immediately appeared on television to denounce the decision taken by the Vilnius government as illegal. Those are steps that can have far-reaching implications, he said, recalling how the signatories of the 2004 agreement on Lithuania’s accession to the European Union had adhered to the adoption of the principle of the freedom of transit of goods, including energy, between the Kaliningrad region and the rest of Russian territory. Konstantin Kosachev, vice president of the Council of the Russian Federation, the upper house of parliament, a figure of some weight on foreign policy issues, took the field yesterday. As a member state of the EU, Lithuania is violating a series of legally binding international acts, he wrote on his Telegram channel citing the prohibition of interference between the parties in their respective transport networks. Russian indignation tends to forget what the root cause of certain decisions is. The fear generated by the invasion of Ukraine has rekindled outbreaks that seemed to be dormant. The embers did not stop burning between Lithuania and Russia, with Moscow never making any secret of ill tolerating the existence of the small Baltic country, the first in that area to free itself from the Soviet Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall . In recent months, Russian television has been hosting constant appeals for the creation of a corridor between Kaliningrad and the rest of the country. That would only be possible, a small detail, with a military attack. Since February 24, the squares and streets dedicated to the dead of January 1991 have multiplied in Lithuania, when Soviet troops attacked government buildings in Vilnius to interrupt the country’s ongoing independence process.
–
The invective
Anyway, no fear. Diplomacy is advancing in great strides. In his usual wake-up post, Dmitry Medvedev wonders if the European Union will still exist when Ukraine’s accession process is over. Maybe the EU will have disappeared by then … Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Sergej Lavrov, whom much of the international community considered to be the one good at dealing he said, perhaps also referring to the Lithuanian affair, that the US is working to silence Russia on international issues, forcing her to bow to laws invented by them, but they will fail. Given the premises, one wonders what could possibly go wrong with the Kaliningrad exclave.
–
June 20, 2022 (change June 20, 2022 | 07:13)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
–
—
