steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
I read it a long time ago, yes. Not sure why you're picking this hill to die on when you just started googling a few hours ago, by your own admission. In fact this treaty was drafted in 2002 before Lithuania was in the EU, and is now superseded by EU regulations. However, your original claim that no treaty existed because you couldn;t find anything after a brief google was nonsense.
The regulations you are looking for are covered by the EU Common Transit procedure (strongly recommended for insomniancs).
Your point seems to be that there is no specific treaty between Russia and Lithuania (and now, the EU, as Lithuania does not have separate bilateral treaties with Russia an an EU member) governing the transit of rail cargo using Lithuanian railways to Kaliningrad, and that therefore any Russian escalation would have no basis.
The Russians think otherwise, which is kind of what matters here.
This article helps further
It is disingenouous for Russians to scream about a blockade- land and rail traffic is not stopped, only that freight which is under EU sanctions. Passengers and non sanctioned freight are not affected.
If they still really want to move coal / steel / other sanctioned goods then they still can, by sea.
However with Nikolai Patrushev all of a sudden visiting Kaliningrad to "discuss security issues in the north west of the federation" and with dark statements being uttered by any senior government official who gets the chance to pass a microphone then I think we are right to see this as a real escalatory flashpoint with unpredictable consequences. We'll see what happens in the next 7-10 days. The good news is that the governor of Kaliningrad is on record as saying he expects the standoff to be resolved diplomatically.
Edited to add: below the text of Borrell's response in his press conference yesterday. The EU will have greenlit this before Lithuania announced it.
Last edited:
