Latest Articles about Baltics
Will Russia Take Over Belarusian Oil Product Transshipment?
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak announced, on September 7, that Russia and Belarus are negotiating conditions for shifting Belarusian oil product exports from the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda to Russian transshipment terminals on the Baltic Sea, with an agreement expected in the next several weeks... MORE
The Baltics States’ Ban on Belarusian Nuclear Electricity Imports: Implications for All Sides
In the whirl of the Belarusian protests this summer, decision makers in Minsk and neighboring states have been forced to respond to the repercussions of the political protests even as they try to identify any potential opportunities that have arisen because of them. One such... MORE
Russian Fighter Jets Intercept US Strategic Bombers
Moscow is stepping up its information campaign against the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by using classic mirror imaging. For more than a decade, Russian strategic bomber flights close to US and NATO airspace designed to test the response of local... MORE
Poland’s Intermarium Idea Very Different From What It Was—or What Moscow Thinks It Is
Russian analysts fail to recognize that Warsaw no longer views the Intermarium—a historical term that today refers to the lands “in between” Russia and the West and the Baltic and Black Seas—as it did in the 1920s and 1930s but rather conceives it as a... MORE
Lukashenka Threatens to Shut Belarusian-Baltic Transit Routes: Who Will Suffer Most?
On August 28, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka threatened to redirect all of his country’s trade flows as well as the transit of foreign goods across its territory from Lithuanian ports to Ust-Luga and Primorsk, in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast, if Europe were to impose anti-Belarus sanctions... MORE
Kaliningrad—A Key Factor in the Kremlin’s Calculations on Belarus
Commentators in Russia and the West have often focused on the geopolitics of the Belarusian situation, arguing that Moscow wants a friendly regime in Belarus in order to expand its military presence there and thus be in a position to project power into Central Europe... MORE
Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine Inaugurate ‘Lublin Triangle’
The ministers of foreign affairs of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine held a trilateral meeting in the southeastern Polish city of Lublin, on July 28, to discuss regional cooperation (Gov.pl, July 28). To pursue such future development, the officials notably established the “Lublin Triangle,” a new... MORE
European States Reappraise Their Diplomatic and Investment Relationships with China
Introduction As the European Union seeks to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic that paralyzed much of its normal political agenda, some member states have also been seeking a way out of major Sino-European initiatives. For example, People’s Republic of China (PRC) diplomats have invested considerable... MORE
Belarusian Elections and Beyond
The ongoing presidential campaign in Belarus has been dominating news flows from that country so much that it is hard to believe anything else noteworthy could be happening. Yet, a number of crucial non-election developments also came to the fore in recent weeks. The Belarusian... MORE
Rail Baltica Moves Ahead but Suffers From Major Construction Delays
The multinational Rail Baltica project, which had been in the planning and design stages since 2014, finally entered the phase of actual construction of the railway line and related infrastructure objects at the beginning of last year (Railbaltica.org, accessed June 30). Work is already underway... MORE