The European Union admitted yesterday that, in imposing sanctions on rail transit into Kaliningrad, Lithuania is acting as nothing more than an instrument of the EU. The move is highly provocative, and “beyond serious,” as Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on Monday. Amongst other concerns, Russia’s Baltic naval fleet is headquartered in Kaliningrad.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell claimed that there is no blockade of Kaliningrad, since overland transit of passengers and goods continues, and “only” the transportation of goods included in the EU sanctions lists has been stopped. “Lithuania is not taking any unilateral restrictions, but in accordance with EU sanctions there are import and export restrictions in relation to certain goods, including the transit of those goods through EU territory. Lithuania is doing nothing else but implementing the guidelines provided by the EU Commission,” he said.
The Russians have a different view of the matter. “Today, we let them know clearly ... that this is absolutely not about the sanctions anymore; this is a different matter. This is a blockade, a partial cargo blockade that they introduce basically in this way against our region. This is what we told them absolutely openly, said it straight up directly,” Russia’s temporary charge d’affaires at the Russian embassy in Vilnius, Sergey Ryabokon, told Rossiya 1 TV yesterday, TASS reported today. BBC cited the governor of the region, Anton Alikhanov, as saying that that the ban covers about 50% of the items that Kaliningrad, an area with around a million inhabitants, imports. Currently, the EU sanctions apply to steel and on other metal products but they are slated to expand to include cement and alcohol on July 10, coal and other solid fuels on August 10, and oil on December 5.
In Kaliningrad for meetings on Tuesday, Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev stated that Russia “will certainly respond to such hostile actions.” Patrushev said the blockade by Lithuania was instigated by the West “in violation of...international law,” and
warned that “appropriate measures” would be taken “in the near future.”
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price added to the fire. “We stand by our NATO allies and we stand by Lithuania…. Specifically our commitment to NATO’s Article Five –- the premise that an attack on one would constitute an attack on all — that commitment on the part of the United States is ironclad,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
