Three days ago, one thing happened which should have happened during the first days of war –
Lithuania stopped letting through cargo trains and trucks with sanctioned goods to the Kaliningrad region.
It’s not a full land blockade – people and goods which are not under the EU sanctions can still pass through Lithuania.
But this country is closed for many cargos like construction materials, metal, coal.
And to save this region’s economy the local government is urgently
looking for ships that can transfer those goods through the Baltic Sea.
Please note, that it wasn’t an immediate decision, Lithuania did it 4 months after the intrusion of Russia into Ukraine.
Before that the Lithuanians consulted with the EU lawyers in order to comply with the European legislation.
Anyway, the Russian government had plenty of time to get ready for such a decision.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and some Russian officials recalled
the “Statement on transit of goods between the Kaliningrad region and the rest of Russian Federation”
signed by Russia and Lithuania in 2003 before Lithuania joined the EU.
The Statement says that Lithuania and the EU should make efforts
to continue the transit between the Kaliningrad region and the rest of Russia.
However, there is a clause mentioning
that the transit regime shouldn’t encroach upon Lithuania’s right to control the movement of goods and people through its territory.
This agreement is from another era. The tone of it is very friendly and with hope for long-term cooperation.
There were no suspicions then that Putin would send tanks to Ukraine and the EU would introduce sanctions for it.
Therefore, there is no clause in this agreement mentioning what to do in such a situation.
It’s not yet clear what kind of “response” Russia can threaten them with.
The Statement didn’t mention any punishment.
And to make Lithuania let the goods through into Kaliningrad by military force, as some speakers offer, is just insane.
Lithuania is a member of NATO and attacking it will result in the world’s war.
The offer to refuse ratifying the agreement on the Russian-Lithuanian state border
sounds scary but it wouldn’t be that important.
This agreement itself was ratified in 2003.
So, the official non-recognition of the border does not necessarily mean war
In peaceful times this would make the relations worse, but now when the relations are already bad enough,
it would be just a formality.
But it’s not just another conflict with another neighbor.
There is this scary procedure in this conflict which makes us fear for our own future.
What happens today is obvious consequences of the Russian government’s actions,
and each time they become a complete surprise for the government.
If the Russian government doesn’t think about the consequences of its actions, it means we can expect anything from them.
And it’s not because they are prepared for everything
but because they are so far away from the reality that they simply didn’t understand the consequences
of the severance of relations with Europe.
Well, if we speak about obvious things,
they’ve just given up on energy projects they put a lot of effort and money into, and which stopped during the first days of war.
Rest in peace, “Nord Stream 2”.
Gazprom is not working for the government, or the stockholders, it works for its own contractors.
Gazprom has already got excessive transit power in Europe, and the second Nord Stream would never be worth its costs.
And the war has just confirmed what all the energy experts and Sberbank analytics said –
while the tube was being built, they fought it desperately in terms of law and in the media.
But the moment it was finished, nobody was interested in “Nord Stream 2” anymore.
And the news about its closure was told like “By the way…”
We can’t say that since the war started 10 billion dollars of the Russian state company have been drowned in the Baltic Sea.
It would be a beautiful thing to say, but no, that’s not true.
Those billions are now where they should be –
in the offshore accounts, bank accounts, palaces, yachts and jets of Putin’s friends.
For them the gas pipe’s closure is not a problem, it’s a solution.
Because its closure means they have the reason to build another one.
Where and why and if it is profitable at all – is not their business.
The situation with Kaliningrad which is partially blocked now and can be in a total land transport blockade in future
is very predictable but in a different way.
During the whole Putin’s period of our history, propaganda tried to sell the threat of “NATO’s enlargement in the East”.
Like with any conspiracy threat like Bill Gates chips in vaccines, you just can’t argue reasonably with those who believe in that.
There’s no use saying that it’s been 20 years since NATO has borders with Russia.
That NATO countries are Russia’s main foreign-trade partners.
It’s them who give us currency we pay to produce military equipment and provide for our army.
That we can’t use our missiles or satellites properly and our fighter aircrafts can’t fly
without electronic components from NATO countries.
That NATO has never threatened Russia in any way.
Moreover, Russia managed to achieve an unprecedented thing in its own history
and meet the 21s century without any external problems and enemies.
On the contrary, everyone wanted to make agreements and cooperate with it.
The West, China, the neighbors, Ukraine – all of them.
But if you spend 20 years telling people nonsense, make arguments and decisions upon it,
finally everyone is going to believe that, even those who initially knew it’s a myth.
Even those people who knew that if NATO decides to hurt Russia,
they won’t need to send troops through the border and take our territory by force.
NATO countries just need to shut the currency income down and stop buying gas and oil.
And that would do the trick. Russia wouldn’t have money to provide for its army.
So, you think NATO is an enemy,
wait for it to show aggression
and still you start an offensive war while having a million-population region separated from the rest of Russia, right?
Meanwhile, you deliberately sacrifice all the international agreements, break all the rules and exit all the arrangements.
It’s official now that all western things mean nothing to you – from the international courts to copyright rights.
Yes, you can see the faults of the international agreements and rules.
And the main fault is that it’s impossible to make the parties follow those rules,
or make the national governments stick to the agreements and arrangements they signed up for.
But it’s not just its fault, it’s also the strength of international cooperation you can’t even see.
If you decide that no one is cooler than yourself,
rules are for cowards and you must break them, everyone else can do the same and forget about your agreements and break all the rules.
The Russian government has had a favorite word during the last decade – it’s “sovereignty”.
They understand it the same way children understand the word “adulthood”.
According to the Russian government, sovereignty is the right to do anything you want without any consequences –
to poison political opponents, to start wars, or steal films and jets.
But the thing is that everyone has sovereignty.
Lithuania has sovereignty over its own territory.
It can decide who will enter its territory and who will not, how the transit is going to work and what goods you can transit.
If you have an exclave, a piece of territory on the western border of Lithuania, the matter of supplies is your problem.
In a world where international agreements aren't worth the paper they are written on,
in a world where everyone cares just about its own sovereignty and does whatever he wants,
in a world like that which you build deliberately – what kind of consequences did you expect?
How could you count for the opposition with NATO,
when you threaten the Baltic countries all the time and make hints on “the return of our native land”
and yet you hope to continue transit through Lithuania (a member of NATO) to Kaliningrad?
International legislation is not based on the point that you can break the legs of the naughty country for its debts.
International legislation is restrictions which the countries follow voluntarily.
It’s based on mutual dependency.
We nationalize the property of the companies which left our market because they’ll do nothing to us.
And it’s true – they won’t. No bill collectors will come with their baseball bats to Russia.
But you can’t transit sanctioned goods to Kaliningrad through Lithuania.
What will you do to Lithuania? Start a war against a NATO country?
Well, in terms of your war potential you are still a child. You’ve already “taken” Kyiv in 3 days.
All the battle-worthy forces are in Donbas now learning the names of the villages and region centers
and are extremely proud to take one more country settlement.
In one day you’ll lose everything you still have, like the payments for oil and gas,
if you show aggression towards a NATO member.
No matter how strongly the allies in NATO wanted to avoid a big war, they will have to participate.
It’s been almost 4 months since you’ve started this war against the country which has 4-times less population,
10-times less GDP.
It’s the country with the defense budget equal to the budget of Moscow’s Department of Transport.
It’s the country which has been cut off from the world’s market of heavy weapons (because of this long-term conflict with Russia)
for many years, which has almost no military aviation, tactical missiles and long-range air defense systems.
In 4 months, you haven’t achieved any goals you wouldn’t be ashamed to tell anyone about.
But you’ve lost a thousand tanks, 10 tank battalions, and suffered five-digit losses.
You’ve achieved an impossible thing in our military history – you failed in the sea.
You’ve lost a missile cruiser, a flag ship, while leading a war against a country which has no military fleet.
On February 23 you could have illusions about the most powerful army in the world which could face the whole NATO army.
On-air you could even show the schemes how to seize the whole Baltic region quickly.
But what’s now?
Now it is not February 23rd.
Many people understood that corruption and incompetence won’t do any good for the army,
but after 4 months of this war everything turned out to be even worse than you could imagine.
And here is the irony – that’s why we can’t say that there will be no attack against Lithuania,
a member of the EU and NATO, because it just can’t be.
Because all those problems we face now and which lead to tense relations with Lithuania are obvious consequences of our attack on Ukraine.
These are the consequences you couldn’t have failed to foresee if our government had at least some common sense,
if at least someone thought about the consequences or even had a look at the map.
The second front with Lithuania will have obvious and more disastrous consequences – up to the real world’s war.
But if last time no one thought about the consequences, you can’t say for sure that someone will this time.
On the contrary, someone might even think that conquering a 2,5-million people country could hide our loss in Ukraine.
On February 24 we saw the huge gap between the executive power branch
and a small group of elderly managers (Putin’s closest allies) who make decisions.
The gap between the government which faces the consequences and the Security council which creates problems.
That is the reason why we shouldn’t pay much attention to the threatening
but empty statements by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, deputies, or any second-rate speakers who want to speak to the media.
There is a reason why their statements are empty and contain hidden threats.
Because in reality there is no answer for the main question:
“Well, we’ve restricted your transit on our territory and what will you do to us?
Welcome to the world of common sovereignty. You’ve started this festival of disobedience, now deal with the consequences.”
What can you do in return? Just express deep concern, or send the diplomats away, what else?
Anyway, the diplomats are already gone.
The economic ties are already minimal and there’s no space for “anti-sanctions”.
The problem is that people who can make decisions about the war with Lithuania are not connected with reality
unlike those who make statements today.
People who make decisions in Russia have already made one suicidal decision, and I wouldn’t bet that they won’t do it again.
Probably, they’ve already convinced themselves that they are leading a war against NATO instead of Ukraine.
Why shouldn’t they open the second front?
Till tomorrow!