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The "most dangerous" place on Earth from where World War III could begin

2022-06-25 15:10:08Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
The "most dangerous" place on Earth from where World War III could
Kaliningrad

"The response will not be diplomatic, but practical," Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia's foreign ministry, threatened on Thursday, "since the beginning of the aggression against Ukraine. This time it threatened Russia's neighbor, Lithuania, and the reason is, recall, the announcement of the blocking of a significant part of rail traffic through Lithuania to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

She did not explain what the "practical" answer was, but it is interesting that on the same day, the Ministry of Defense of another Russian neighbor, Estonia, reported that the Russian Mi-8 military helicopter entered its airspace for two minutes on Saturday. past.

The day before, the threat to Lithuania - which has about 50 times less population than Russia - was sent by Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation and a close ally of Putin.

"Russia will certainly respond to such hostile actions. Appropriate measures are being developed in an inter-departmental format and will be taken in the near future. "Their consequences will have a serious negative impact on the Lithuanian population," Patrushev said, accusing Lithuania of violating the norms and principles of international law.

In vain, Lithuania and the European Union tried to explain to Russia that the blockade, which includes coal, metals, construction materials and advanced technology, is not its decision, but the implementation of a joint EU decision on sanctions. for aggression.

Kaliningrad is the headquarters of the Russian Baltic Fleet and a generally heavily militarized area in which, along with tens of thousands of Baltic Fleet soldiers and sailors, Iskander ballistic missiles capable of holding nuclear warheads are located.

The "most dangerous" place on Earth from where World War III could

Kaliningrad fell under Russian rule after victory over Nazi Germany at the end of World War II. Before that, this historically German city was called Königsberg and had a predominantly German population, dating back to the time of the Kingdom of Prussia, but during and after the war it was ethnically cleansed and completely Russified.

Long before the current tensions between Moscow and Vilnius, Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and prime minister and current deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, threatened that Russia would deploy hypersonic missiles and nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad.

"In that case, we can no longer talk about the Baltic as a region without nuclear weapons - the balance must be restored," Medvedev explained.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvidas Anusauskas called the threat meaningless, arguing that Russia has long held nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, "100 kilometers from the border with Lithuania." "The international community and all countries in the region are fully aware of this."

In 2018, the American Federation of Scientists also published satellite images of the alleged nuclear weapons depot in Kaliningrad.

Russia's aggressive rhetoric against Lithuania in recent days sounds even worse if we consider the recent bill by Russian Duma deputy Yevgeny Fyodorov that Moscow withdraw recognition of Lithuania's independence during the fall of the Soviet Union, on the pretext that recognition was anti-government. .

Moreover, Fyodorov said in an interview later that withdrawing recognition of Lithuania's independence would create a legal basis that would force NATO to expel Lithuania, as a "disputed territory", from the Alliance.

"She is schizophrenic. "It is as if Serbia suddenly came up with the idea of ​​withdrawing recognition from Montenegro or, or, say, Croatia, because, from their point of view, Yugoslavia disintegrated illegally," said Dainius, former president of the Lithuanian Constitutional Court. Zalimas, commenting on the EU Observer portal.

It is difficult to say whether Fyodorov is speaking on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin or has his own ideas. But in the event that Lithuania is unable to leave NATO, Russia would have open arms to attack this small country of less than 3 million people, which would certainly not be able to offer such resistance. as strong and persistent as Ukraine.

And in the event of a Russian invasion, the key would be a small and sparsely populated part of Lithuania, which Politico called in a recent article "the most dangerous place on Earth."

The "most dangerous" place on Earth from where World War III could

Its name is the Suwałki Corridor, the weakest link, a kind of "Achilles heel", not only of Lithuania but of all NATO in case of war with Russia. This narrow corridor between Kaliningrad in the west and the Belarusian-Lithuanian border in the east is about 100 kilometers long and stretches along the Polish-Lithuanian border in the south.

Druskininkai, a city of about 12,000 in the corridor, is part of what Putin treats "historically Russian" territory - Russian Tsar Nicholas I designated the city as an official health resort for his civil servants. From that time until today, the authorities there have alternated: Prussia, Poland, Russia, the Soviet Union and, for the last thirty years, an independent Lithuania. But until the invasion of Ukraine, its main visitors were Russians and Belarusians.

"The community believes in the Lithuanian army and NATO and in their ability to ensure security," the city administration said in response to a Politico investigation.

Lithuania, on the other hand, has a volunteer paramilitary group called the Shooting Alliance, which was founded several hundred years ago to fight for independence, but which also has a dark episode of collaboration with the Nazis in World War II, similar to the organization of Ukrainian nationalists, in which Russia finds reasons for the "denazification" of Ukraine.

After the declaration of independence, the alliance was renewed with state support. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the number of members has grown significantly to 14,000. Ramūnas peterpetauskas, commander of the local platoon in Druskininkai, told Politico that for now everything is peaceful on the eastern border and that he does not expect Russia to harass his country as long as it is engaged in Ukraine, but that he and his friends monitor the border corridor.

"Some people think that it does not make sense to attack us, but it should be noted that this is a direct land route to Kaliningrad. "If they manage to defeat Ukraine, it is possible that the next blow will fall here," Sherpetauskas said.

Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves spoke about Suwałki in 2015 in talks with then-German Defense Minister and current European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, warning him that this is a weak critical point on NATO's east wing. -s.

He, like many Western officials and analysts, worries that Russia, in conflict with the West, could explode simultaneously in a corridor from east to west, thus quickly and effectively separating the three Baltic states from Poland and other allies in the south. .

"It is a great vulnerability because the invasion would separate Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from the rest of NATO," Ilves explained.

And just as he created a land bridge between mainland Russia and the annexed Crimean peninsula by invading Ukraine, Putin could link Kaliningrad, a key Russian port in the Baltic, with Belarus, which is already a de facto protectorate of Moscow, occupying Suvałkin. .

Putin himself suggested that his imperialist ambitions extended beyond Ukraine when he referred to Peter the Great earlier this month, and concluded that in the war with Sweden in the Baltics he had "restored what was Russian."

Mikhail Kasyanov, the former Russian prime minister under Putin, and today his sharpest critic, himself warned that "the Baltic states will be next" if Ukraine falls.

The expected entry of Sweden and Finland into NATO has further increased tensions between Russia and the Alliance. Their acceptance may make it harder for Russia to secede the Baltic from the rest of the Alliance, but it will also turn the Baltic Sea into what some call a "NATO lake," which could be an additional motive for Putin. to take the land bridge to Kaliningrad.

The biggest risk, however, potentially stems from relative insignificance, at least for the rest of NATO. Would all, or at least the most important NATO members, such as the United States, Britain, France and Germany, be ready to enter World War III just because of this corridor? This may be exactly the vague line Putin likes to try with the West, convinced of its indecision and weakness.

"The only answer to this challenge is an increased NATO presence here. "We know that Russia is obsessed with closing the land corridors," Lithuania's Deputy Defense Minister Margiris Abukevicius told Politico.

And this will certainly be one of the issues that will be much debated at the forthcoming NATO summit in Madrid on June 29-30, along with the issue of Ukraine, where the situation on the battlefield in Donbas is deteriorating.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has announced that combat groups will be further strengthened in the eastern part of the Alliance, with more air, naval and cyber defense, "but the final word will be on the leaders of the strongest members." , by US President Joe Biden onwards.

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