The Lithuanian front in the Russia-Ukraine war

This is the kind of small escalations over which we all should be alert: Daniel Boffey, Russia threatens retaliation as Lithuania bans goods transit to Kaliningrad Guardian 06/20/2022:

Russia has provoked concern in Brussels after threatening to retaliate over Lithuania’s ban on the transit of some goods across its territory to Russian Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.

The move by the government in Vilnius was described as “unprecedented” in Moscow, where the Russian foreign office said they reserved the right to respond to protect their national interest.

The comments set off alarm bells in Brussels, where the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Lithuania was simply enforcing the bloc’s sanctions regime. He added, however, that he was concerned by the risk of retaliation and that he would check that all the rules were being followed, while accusing the Kremlin of peddling propaganda.

Kaliningrad is part of Russia, which is not contiguous with the rest of the Russian Federation's territory. They have a land connection to the rest of Russia through an agreed-upon transit route with Lithuania. From a non-diplomat's perspective, sanctions against trading with Russia with specific goods or transactions doesn't obviously mean that you block Russian vehicles transporting goods from one part of Russia to another.

This is a portion of the Guardian's graphic showing the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

The specialists will need to decipher what statements like this mean in Diplomat-speak:

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, further escalated tensions on Monday by threatening a response to what he said was an “illegal move”. He said: “This decision is really unprecedented. It’s a violation of everything. We consider this illegal. The situation is more than serious … We need a serious in-depth analysis in order to work out our response.”

This is the kind of thing that can escalate quickly. Legislators and heads of government in NATO countries need to be asking serious questions about this in public. An obvious one: why is Lithuania (apparently) first making public nearly four months into the Ukraine war that the sanctions applied to established transit routes through Lithuania to Kaliningrad? The particular EU sanctions Lithuania is using for justification first took effect last Saturday, June 18.

The world's longest continually-publishing newspaper, the Wiener Zeitung, adds these data points (Russland eskaliert Spannungen um Kaliningrad 22.06.2022; my translation to English, my emphasis):

Litauen verbietet unter Verweis auf am Samstag in Kraft getretene EU-Sanktionen den Transitverkehr von Gütern wie Baumaterialien, Metalle und Kohle in die russische Exklave. Die Einschränklungen [sic] betreffen rund 50 Prozent aller Transitgüter. Von dem Verbot betroffen ist auch die einzige Zugstrecke zwischen Russland und Kaliningrad. Litauen weist den Vorwurf Moskaus zurück, mit dem Transitverbot neue Sanktionen gegen Russland verhängt zu haben.

Das frühere ostpreußische Königsberg liegt an der Ostsee zwischen den EU- und Nato-Staaten Litauen und Polen. Dort wird ein Teil des russischen Atomwaffenarsenals gelagert.

Die EU kritisiert die russischen Anschuldigungen als "falsch" und als "reine Propaganda". In den baltischen Staaten ist jetzt die Angst vor einer russischen Invasion groß. Hier erinnert man sich an das Jahr 1940, als die Sowjetunion im Zuge des Hitler-Stalin-Pakts das Baltikum okkupierte. Der deutsche Kanzler Olaf Scholz hat Litauen jedenfalls militärische Unterstützung zugesichert. Berlin habe neben mehr Soldaten auch Marine- und Luftwaffeneinsätze in Ostseeraum verstärkt und halte nun eine Brigade bereit, die im Krisenfall unverzüglich mit Kräften aus Deutschland verstärkt werde. Die deutsche Bundeswehr führt die von der Nato nach Litauen entsandte Kampftruppe an und stellt außerdem einen Großteil des Kontingents.

[Lithuania is banning the transit of goods such as building materials, metals and coal to the Russian exclave, citing EU sanctions that came into force on Saturday. The restrictions affect around 50 percent of all goods in transit. The only train route between Russia and Kaliningrad is also affected by the ban. Lithuania rejects Moscow's accusation that it has imposed new sanctions on Russia with the transit ban. {They came into effect less than a week ago but they are not "new"?}

The former East Prussian Königsberg is located on the Baltic Sea between the EU and NATO states Lithuania and Poland. Part of Russia's nuclear arsenal is stored there.

The EU criticises the Russian accusations as "false" and as "pure propaganda". In the Baltic states, there is now a great fear of a Russian invasion. Here one remembers the year 1940, when the Soviet Union occupied the Baltic States in the course of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. In any case, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged military support to Lithuania. In addition to more soldiers, Berlin has also stepped up naval and air force operations in the Baltic Sea region and now has a brigade ready, which will be immediately reinforced with forces from Germany in the event of a crisis. The German Bundeswehr leads the NATO-sent combat force to Lithuania and also provides a large part of the contingent.

Great. Germany and Russia gearing up for a possible direct conflict over the Baltic states? This is really not a good place for NATO, Europe, and Russia to be.

Ryan White at Defense News adds this detail (https://www.defensenews.com/newsletters/2022/06/21/why-is-lithuania-risking-russias-wrath-over-kaliningrad/>Why is Lithuania risking Russia’s wrath over Kaliningrad? 06/21/2022):

The move comes on top of the EU flight ban of 21 Russian-certified airlines in April, preventing goods from being flown into Kaliningrad as well. The only uninterrupted method of transit left to the territory now is by way of the sea through international waters. ...

With Lithuania being a NATO member, any direct military action by Russia would trigger Article 5 of the treaty and the entirety of the alliance would at war with Russia. During the State of the Union Address, U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to defend “every inch” of NATO territory. In March, the U.S. bolstered its presence in Lithuania, bringing the number of soldiers stationed in the country to around 1,000.

Oh, yeah, world war between the two biggest nuclear powers is always a risk here, too. Kind of an important thing to keep in mind.

Belarus, Lithuania, and EU fecklessness on refugee policy

It is often sad and aggravating to see how public discussion in Austria over refugee issues goes.

This is a small example from Der Standard, which is actually a very good news organization, and a partner newspaper of the New York Times. It's about refugees arriving from Belarus into Lithuania, . The article includes this sentence:

Der baltische Staat [Litauen] hatte zuletzt eine Rekordzahl von Flüchtlingen und Migranten registriert, die von Belarus aus ins Land kamen. Heuer wurden bisher mehr als 3000 von ihnen aufgegriffen – im gesamten Vorjahr waren es gerade einmal 81. Für das Drei-Millionen-Einwohner-Land ist das eine echte Herausforderung.

The Baltic state [Lithuania] has recently registered a record number of refugees and migrants entering the country from Belarus. So far this year, more than 3,000 of them have been picked up – in the entire previous year there were just 81. This is a real challenge for the country of three million inhabitants.] (my emphasis)

But the article doesn't elaborate on how 3,000 refugees, which is 0.1% of three million, is a "real challenge" for Lithuania. It does later ridiculously describe them as a "type of partisan warfare," i.e., guerilla warfare, by Belarus against Lithuania. I think there are some diplomats as well as reporters who need to sober up on this matter.

If Lithuania is having some kind of crisis handling three thousand refugees, that sounds to me like they weren't taking minimum preparations for such a contingency.

This is a small example of how the EU's general head-in-the-sand approach to refugees makes it unnecessarily vulnerable to neighboring countries giving refugees access to cross the border. As the Standard article explains, Belarus is allowing/encouraging this as part of its current differences with the EU, "Der Präsident von Belarus öffnet seine Grenzen für Flüchtlinge und Migranten aus dem Nahen Osten, um sich an Litauen für die westlichen Sanktionen zu rächen." ("The President of Belarus is opening his borders to refugees and migrants from the Middle East to take revenge on Lithuania for Western sanctions.")

The EU was understandably concerned by the 2020 presidential election in Belarus, which really was stolen by Alexander Lukashenko, who continues as President. Belarus borders on Russia in the east, Ukraine in the south, and in the north and east by EU members Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. Belarus is one of six countries that are part of the Eastern Partnership framework with the EU, along with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

EU policy is to encourage stability and democracy in those countries and to promote friendly and cooperative relations. Being in the Eastern Partnership does not mean that a country is in a formal process of accession to the EU. But that is one possibility the EU wants to leave open, particularly for Georgia and Ukraine at the moment. However, the possibility of those countries formally becoming part of the EU and NATO is viewed by the Russian government as a potential threat.

During his Presidency when began in 1994 and continues today, Lukashenko has tended to seek a balance between Russia and the EU. There are strong affiliations to Russia and similarities in the political systems of Putin and Lukashenko. But he's tried to avoid being a situation where Russia could effective dominate or even incorporate it politically.

But his government's reckless decision a couple of months ago to commit what really was air piracy by forcing down a commercial flight legally transiting Belarussian airspace in order to arrest a dissident Belarussian journalist and his girlfriend triggered targeting sanctions by the EU. It also resulted in the very practical move by EU countries to restrict flights between Belarus and EU locations, as well as sanctions against some Belarussian officials.

So the release of refugees to cross the Lithuanian border is a retaliation against the EU by Lukashenko's government. Which should have been obvious to everyone involved on the EU side and should have prompted a well thought-out response.

But EU policy on immigration and refugees is so broken and the political leadership so irresponsible in how they frame the issue that they are now sputtering in horror at a few thousand refugees coming from Belarus. One doesn't have to be any kind of foreign policy expert to see that such weak and feckless behavior by the EU in such situations makes the whole Union subject to blackmail from unhappy neighboring regimes.

Again, the 3,000 refugees Lithuania is treating as an alarming crisis is 0.1% of their population. The total population of the current 27 EU member states is 448 million. Three thousand is 0.001% of that population. Is the EU really so weak and pathetic that it can't handle an obviously easily foreseeable consequence to the very necessary response of the EU to Lukashenko's plane hijacking?

That really is sad!

But life, diplomacy, and nationalist posturing goes on, of course. Lukashenko just made a new diplomatic move: Yuras Karmanau, Belarus leader ready to invite Russian troops ‘if necessary’ AP 07/30/2021:

In remarks carried by the state-run Belta news agency, Lukashenko stressed that he had dealt with last year’s anti-government protests without involving other countries’ armed forces, but added that he would not hesitate to bring in Russian troops if necessary.

Belarus is able to quickly deploy 500,000 of its own personnel, but “if it is not enough, all Russian armed forces will be brought in,” Lukashenko said, according to Belta. “If it is necessary, we won’t hesitate.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that Moscow hasn’t received any official requests from Belarus to deploy troops, and the move “is possible only after an official request from the leadership of one country to the leadership of other.”

This appears to be mainly saber-rattling against the West. It does not constitute any real immediate threat to the West. But Balurus' neighbors Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia are all NATO members. And Lukashenko's threat is a not-so-subtle reminder that incorporating the Baltic states in particular into NATO was done in the expectation that there was no serious expectation liklihood that Russia would be likely to threaten them in the immediate future, a bit of post-Cold War triumphalism that should have been occasion for more careful calculations.

The refugees Belarus is using in the current situation should not be the occasion for hysteria by Belarus or any else. But Austrian Chancellor Sebastian "Basti" Kurz is using the occasion to show once again that he's the Savior of Austrians Against the Scary Scary Foreigners:

13 Cobra-Einsatzkräfte hat Innenminister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) am Donnerstag in Wien gen Litauen verabschiedet. Mehr als 1100 Kilometer nordöstlich der Heimat sollen die Mitglieder der Spezialeinheit mithelfen, die löchrige EU-Außengrenze zu stopfen. ...

Der Einsatz der österreichischen Einsatzkräfte beginnt am 1. August und soll auf alle Fälle einige Wochen dauern. Wann er endet, hängt von der Entwicklung vor Ort ab.

[Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) bid farewell in Vienna on Thursday to 13 Cobra [elite police force] soldiers headed to Lithuania. More than 1100 kilometers northeast of home, the members of the special unit are to help plug the porous EU external border. ...

The deployment of the Austrian forces begins on August 1 and should last a few weeks in any case. When it ends depends on local developments.]

This is a cheap political stunt. Kurz constantly refers to refugees in terms of danger, threat, menace, danger - and rarely if ever in different terms. This is a truly dumb move, done for no other reason to bolster his own desired xenophobic image.