Why Lithuania is feeling nervous about Russia

A combination of cyberwarfare, EU sanctions on Russian goods, and a history of sovereignty disputes have raised concerns that Lithuania could soon be facing direct aggression from Moscow.

Some fear that tensions between the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and its neighbouring Nato member states Lithuania and Poland could “spiral”, with the Russian territory becoming “a new flashpoint” in the Ukraine war, said Newsweek.

‘Diplomatic headache’

The politics between these Baltic states is “extremely complicated”, said Sky News. Kaliningrad has been a “diplomatic headache” since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, said Lithuanian public broadcaster, LRT.

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Since recognising its independence, “Russia has been trying to make Lithuania an appendix of Russia”, diplomat Albinas Januška told the news site.

Before the country became an EU member in 2004, Moscow had wanted Lithuania to “become a corridor country with no sovereignty rights over its own territory”, he continued.

EU intervention

The Kremlin warned last week that there would be “serious” consequences after Lithuania applied for the EU to sanction certain Russian goods – including coal, oil and steel – from arriving in Kaliningrad by rail transit through Lithuanian territory.

Moscow claims that the Baltic state has blocked a railway connecting Kaliningrad and mainland Russia, which Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė has denied. Nevertheless, “panic buying has gripped” the Russian territory’s roughly one million residents owing to fears of a possible blockade, said Newsweek.

“Moscow’s threats are among the most serious it has made to a Nato member since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February,” said the Financial Times. But Lithuanian diplomats told LRT that “Europe should not give in to Russian threats”.

Cyberwarfare

Lithuania’s National Cyber Security Centre released a statement on Monday detailing that state and private institutions had been hit by a cyberattack. Killnet, a Russian hacker group, claimed responsibility for the attacks on its Telegram channel, and said the cyber aggression had been deployed in “retaliation” over the transit of Russian goods being halted, said Sky News.

The cyberattack does not amount to a Russian state-backed attack on a Nato member state, as Killnet is not affiliated with the Kremlin – but “it would not come as a surprise if it was involved”, said the news site. “On the surface at least, its hands are clean.”

The attack itself was also relatively “crude”, said Sky News. It appears to have been a distributed denial of service attack, which sends vast levels of traffic to a website until it is forced offline. “It’s a blunt force instrument, little more,” and is “not the kind of attack that will provoke a military response”.

‘Weak point’

Though there are no signs of direct aggression from Russia yet, Lithuania’s citizens are preparing for a potential attack. The country’s volunteer militia, the Riflemen, “has seen its numbers balloon” since the invasion of Ukraine began in February, a commanding officer told CNN.

The Suwalki corridor, a passage between Kaliningrad and its Russian ally Belarus, is a region of particular vulnerability and is “viewed by many analysts as a weak point within Nato”, said CNN. The corridor is “caught in a pincer grip between Kremlin troops”, and “the fear is that if Ukraine fell, Russia would advance through it next”.

Resolution in sight

Trade from Russia to Kaliningrad via Lithuania could resume within days, sources told Reuters. European officials are “seeking a compromise” over the transit disputes, and people with knowledge of the discussions told the news agency that they expect a deal to be struck within a matter of weeks.

One solution could see freight movement between Russia and Kaliningrad recognised as exempt from EU sanctions given it “does not count as normal international trade”, one of the sources indicated. Another said that “humanitarian grounds” could be the basis of an exemption for Kaliningrad.