Russian officials, in separate statements issued yesterday, indicated that Russia demands that the transit of goods to and from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad be lifted. If that doesn’t happen, Moscow will retaliate, though the specific measures have yet to be decided on.
Dmitry Lyskov, spokesman for the Kaliningrad regional administration, told TASS that the authorities there will settle for nothing less than the complete restoration of transit between the exclave and Russia. “We will consider everything else to be a distortion of the situation and the very essence of the transit agreement,” he said. “That said, there should be no restrictions on the transit of non-dual-use goods to and from Kaliningrad. We view it as transit from one Russian region to another. Options other than this will be unacceptable for us,” Lyskov noted, adding that the regional authorities “would like to see a final document regulating the Kaliningrad transit.”
Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that Russia is working on preparation of a response to the blocking of transit by Lithuania. “This matter is in progress now. In particular, certain signals are coming from the European Commission,” Ushakov said."When communication between Russian regions is shut off, we certainly cannot leave it without an appropriate response. We will look now at how the situation will develop in the coming days,” he added.
Former President Dmitry Medvedev, in an interview with Argumenty i Fakty, promised that Lithuania will feel the pain when Russia responds. “Let’s face it, the restriction of transit is part of the proxy war that the West has unleashed against Russia,” he said. “Naturally, Russia will take retaliatory measures, and they will be very tough.” He said a significant proportion of the possible retaliatory moves is economic and “is capable of pulling the plug on the Baltic neighbors that have acted in a hostile manner.”
Medvedev wouldn’t say what measures Moscow is contemplating but warned that Lithuania would be solely responsible for the consequences. “Lithuania does not think at all about the consequences of its own moves. And even explanations that Lithuania only obediently implements the decisions made by the European Union do not help here,” he said. He said “the EU didn’t even insist” on such radical steps as a transit ban, realizing possible problems. “Yet Lithuania obsequiously bowed before its American benefactors, once again showing its moronic Russophobic attitudes,” the official said.
Lithuania may already be suffering consequences of the transit ban. The Lithuanian Defense Ministry said yesterday that an “intensive” DDoS attack was targeting “the secure national data network, other Lithuanian public authorities and private companies.” Among the government functions hit were the tax inspectorate and the migration department, reported LRT. Lithiuanian authorities were saying that the cyber attacks were contained by yesterday afternoon but that more attacks were likely.
