The Kaliningrad governor warned Lithuania that “the game with China has already been played out”
Lithuania, already deprived of the opportunity to profit from Chinese transportation, risks suffering serious losses from the loss of the Russian market.
Governor of the Kaliningrad region Anton Alikhanov spoke about this on RT Russia, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
He emphasized that the leadership of the Baltic states has, in recent years, pursued a more hostile policy towards the Russian Federation than other European countries.
“The logic of what is happening now on the Lithuanian side is completely absent. Lithuanians at the level of railway authorities, customs officers, border guards and those involved in the economy at the grassroots level - on the contrary, they approached the situation wisely and interpreted all these sanctions very carefully. Life went on, they worked, traveled, supported economic exchange.
But when the situation came to a head, it reached the conditional president, the prime minister of Lithuania, everything began to acquire, in the force of recent years, wild Russophobic politicization, and everyone said: “No, the European Commission has already told us to allow transit, but we are not entirely sure whether it is right We read this, we don’t really agree anymore” - this is starting to turn into a very aggressive tool,” Alikhanov reasoned.
In his opinion, the trade blockade of the Kaliningrad exclave, supported by Lithuania, will significantly affect not only the well-being of the region’s residents, but will also cause damage to the Baltic republic’s own citizens.
The regional governor reminded his Baltic colleagues that their actions were completely unlawful.
“I read some articles with regret. For example, one respected publication published (material - ed.) which says that “there are no such obligations (to ensure free transit of Russian Federation products to compatriots from Kaliningrad - ed.),” referring to the 2002 joint memorandum between Russia and the EU. Firstly, they are there, formulated in general terms. Secondly, there is a similar memorandum from 2004 that details these obligations. There are references to relevant documents, WTO obligations, which are once again repeated in agreements between the EU and Russia specifically in connection with the issue of Kaliningrad transit, indicating that the EU and the Baltic countries will in no way interfere with free transit, including energy,” he explained.
According to him, the desires of the Baltic states, dependent on cooperation with the Russian Federation, to destabilize the economy of the leading transit country will entail negative consequences.
“The conversation here is not about Lithuania’s dependence on the Kaliningrad region, but about Lithuania’s dependence on the Russian Federation. If I were the Lithuanians, I would not underestimate this dependence. If you look at the map, the functioning of their railways, the entire logistics infrastructure that has been built over the past decades in the region in Lithuania, the port infrastructure - all this is extremely strongly tied to the Russian Federation. Moreover, not only in the question of what cargo arrives at Lithuanian ports and then moves towards European and other markets.
For Lithuania, the Russian Federation is the main transit country through which any other goods, not Russian ones, go. For example, before they started messing around with recognizing Taiwan, Chinese. Now it is impossible to convince the Chinese to go to Lithuanian ports; this has been abandoned at the state level. Chinese business has spoken out in a consolidated manner: “We no longer travel through Lithuanian ports,” Alikhanov warned.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.