Latest Articles about Kaliningrad/Baltic
Could Annexation Be Putin’s Response to NATO Enlargement?
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has energized the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in every possible way, reviving the alliance’s purpose and unity, and granting it new attractiveness in Europe as well as greater prominence in the Indo-Pacific. The prospect of Finland and Sweden joining the... MORE
Moscow Mulling Wholesale Border Changes in Central Eastern Europe
The most compelling reason why the international community is opposed to any border change is the capacity of changes in one border to spark consideration of changes in others, creating or at least exacerbating problems in the relations between existing countries. Until Russian President Vladimir... MORE
Moscow Preparing for Possible Blockade of Kaliningrad
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has worried about maintaining transportation links with its non-contiguous exclave of Kaliningrad. These worries intensified when the two countries cutting Kaliningrad off from the rest of the Russian Federation (and Moscow-aligned Belarus)—Poland and Lithuania—became members of... MORE
Lithuania and Poland Want to ‘Recover’ Kaliningrad, Russian Analysts Say
Since Soviet times, Russian analysts have mused about the possibility that Germany might try to recover Kaliningrad, or East Prussia as it was known before Joseph Stalin seized it at the end of World War II. Later, during the 1990s, they focused on the risk... MORE
Zapad 2021 Suggests, in Event of War, Moscow Could Seize Baltics but Lose Kaliningrad
Military exercises not only make known what a government believes could happen but become an occasion for its analysts and those in other countries to speculate as to what the outcomes of a real military conflict would be if the scenarios were to be applied... MORE
Anti-Migrant Rally in Buzhaninovo Raises Specter of Dangerous Russian Nationalism
On September 13, more than 300 individuals gathered for a “people’s meeting,” or skhod, outside a dormitory for migrant workers in the Moscow Oblast town of Buzhaninovo, near Sergiev Posad. The rally participants called on the local police to investigate the foreign migrants in the... MORE
Massive Zapad 2021 War Games Begin
The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has begun massive Zapad 2021 operational-strategic war games together with its smallish ally Belarus. The quadrennial Zapad (“West”) exercises are designed to test the ability of a joint Russo-Belarus military force to defend the Russo-Belarus Union State against enemies,... MORE
Moscow Announces Dramatic Expansion of Military Forces in Western Direction
On Monday, May 31, Russia’s long-serving defense minister, Army General Sergei Shoigu, delivered remarks at a meeting of the so-called Ministry of Defense Collegium (a top brass ministry panel). Among the topics he discussed, Shoigu focused on the alleged growing threat of the North Atlantic... MORE
Russia Builds up Its Export Potential in Baltic Basin
Russian natural gas giant Gazprom signed a preliminary agreement with global engineering company Linde to deliver engineering and procurement services for the Ust-Luga gas processing plant on the Baltic Sea. Gazprom CEO Miller signed the agreement on behalf of RusKhimAlyans, a special-purpose company established on... MORE
Despite Construction Work Restart, Nord Stream Two Remains in Limbo
On December 11, project operator Nord Stream 2 AG restarted construction work on the Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline after an almost year-long break. This development, however, does not mean that completion of the 55 billion cubic meter (bcm) gas transit line expansion is... MORE