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It has been identified as “the most unsafe place on Earth”, reported Der Stern (Hamburg). Spanning 40 miles as the crow flies, the Suwalki Hole is a corridor of land, operating along the Polish/Lithuanian border, that connects the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to Belarus.
The area has prolonged been viewed as “the Achilles’ heel” of Nato’s eastern defences, owing to the relative simplicity with which Russia could seize it by launching a pincer assault amongst Kaliningrad in the northwest and its client state, Belarus, in the southeast.
The generation of this kind of a land bridge would proficiently isolate the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), which are all associates of Nato, from the EU. Until not too long ago, it was only Russian hawks on “state television” who advocated this sort of an assault: it would, after all, hazard starting up a war between Russia and Nato. Yet now, there are expanding fears that war in excess of the Suwalki Gap is precisely what we’re heading for.
Why? Due to the fact in June, Lithuania began imposing a ban on the transit of EU- sanctioned products by means of its territory to Kaliningrad.
Vilnius claims it is basically next EU guidelines on sanctions – but the go sparked fury in Russia, said Dmitry Drize in Kommersant (Moscow). Some Russian MPs have been urging Moscow to “cancel the recognition of Lithuania as an independent state” armed forces drills have been held in Kaliningrad Kremlin officers talk ominously of serious implications for Lithuania.
Importance of Kaliningrad
Kaliningrad’s worth to Moscow is challenging to overstate, said Benjamin Restle and Monir Ghaedi in Deutsche Welle (Bonn). An area about the dimension of Northern Ireland, it’s household to about a million men and women. The birthplace of Immanuel Kant (in 1724), it flourished for hundreds of years as East Prussia’s commercial cash, Königsberg. But right after the Second World War and the defeat of Nazi Germany, it was ceded to Soviet Russia.
These times, the exclave is a important military foundation, reported The Economist (London). A buffer zone that constitutes the 1st line of defence for Russia from the West, it homes Russia’s Baltic fleet, tens of hundreds of soldiers and, reportedly, nuclear weapons.
It is studded with radar methods furnishing surveillance of central Europe, and is Russia’s only Baltic Sea port that is ice-absolutely free all year round. Really should Sweden and Finland be a part of Nato, its value to Moscow will only improve.
Lithuania’s ‘courageous’ stance
Which is why Lithuania’s stance is so courageous, claimed Migle Valaitiene in Delfi (Vilnius). Unbowed by Russian threats to the Baltic states, Vilnius had already been sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, in the system committing a far larger share of its GDP than many of its wealthier EU counterparts.
And now, by utilizing Brussels’s sanctions offer, it will do really serious destruction to Kaliningrad’s financial state. Some may perhaps deem it unwise to poke the Russian bear, but Moscow’s war on Ukraine has revealed that treating Russia cautiously is a tactic that just doesn’t operate. “Time to try out yet another.”
Perfectly, the bear has absolutely been poked, said Michael Thumann in Die Zeit (Hamburg). “Not a day goes by devoid of Russian politicians earning wild threats from Lithuania and Nato.” Still an attack continues to be not likely. Sounding off about what Russia phone calls the “blockade” of Kaliningrad and threatening Nato customers is President Putin’s way of trying to spook the West into easing sanctions.
EU officers ‘seeking compromise’
If which is his technique, claimed Andrius Sytas and John O’Donnell on Reuters, then it appears to be to be doing the job. EU officials, backed by Germany, are now reported to be looking for a compromise over Kaliningrad: they are terrified that Putin may perhaps use the dispute as a pretext to lower gasoline flows to Europe or, even worse nevertheless, “use navy pressure to plough a land corridor” by means of the Suwalki Hole.
That is certainly a significantly terrifying prospect, mentioned Matthew Karnitschnig on Politico (Brussels). “Lithuania, like its Baltic neighbours, is ill-equipped for a Russian assault.” In principle a shift by Russia on Poland or Lithuania would result in Nato’s Report 5 mutual-defence provision, but there’s no certainty that would take place in observe.
“How keen would Washington and Nato be to danger Armageddon above a stretch of mainly unpopulated farmland several of their citizens even know exists?” That, alas, is precisely the form of nervousness Putin enjoys to provoke.
