RUSSIA HAS DEMANDED the immediate lifting of Lithuania’s “openly hostile” restrictions on the rail transit of EU-sanctioned goods to Moscow’s exclave of Kaliningrad that borders Lithuania and Poland.
Moscow accused the Baltic nation of banning the rail transit of goods subject to sanctions imposed by the European Union over Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.
Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement today that it had summoned Lithuania’s charge d’affaires in Moscow to protest the “provocative” and “openly hostile” measures.
“If in the near future cargo transit between the Kaliningrad region and the rest of the territory of the Russian Federation through Lithuania is not restored in full, then Russia reserves the right to take actions to protect its national interests,” the ministry said.
According to the ministry, the transit ban violates a 2002 Russia-EU agreement
The Kremlin said Lithuania’s decision was “unprecedented” and “in violation of everything there is”, and suggested that retaliatory measures would follow.
“The situation is more than serious and it requires a very deep analysis before formulating any measures and decisions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Earlier today, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the ban was imposed in compliance with European sanctions over Ukraine.
“These are European sanctions that started to work from 17 June,” he told journalists in Luxembourg, specifying that in this case it concerned the rail transport of steel products.
‘No right to threaten Lithuania’
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba criticised Russia following the statement from Moscow’s foreign ministry.
“Russia has no right to threaten Lithuania. Moscow has only itself to blame for the consequences of its unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine,” Kuleba said in a statement on social media.
According to Kaliningrad governor Anton Alikhanov, the ban will affect between 40-50 percent of all imports to the exclave.
The list includes coal, metals, construction materials and advanced technology.
Speaking to Russian state TV on Monday, Alikhanov said the situation was “unpleasant but solvable” and the goods could be delivered by sea.
These goods were not intended for trade in Europe but for “supplying” the region, he added.
Wedged between EU and Nato members Lithuania and Poland, the heavily militarised exclave of Kaliningrad does not share a land border with Russia.
The region – previously called Konigsberg – was captured by Soviet troops during World War II and when the Baltic states became independent with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the region became cut off from Russia.
The region on the shores of the Baltic Sea is the base of Russia’s Baltic Fleet and Moscow says it has deployed nuclear-capable Iskander missiles there.
Relations between Moscow and Lithuania – as well its Baltic neighbours Latvia and Estonia – have soured for years, fuelled by Russia’s heightened tensions with the West.
‘Hostile activity’ likely to intensify
Earlier today, Ukraine said it has lost control of a village adjacent to the eastern industrial city of Severodonetsk, the centre of weeks of fierce fighting with invading Russian troops.
It comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Moscow was likely to intensify its “hostile activity” this week, as the country awaits a historic decision from the European Union on its bid for candidate status.
“Unfortunately, we do not control Metyolkine anymore. And the enemy continues to build up its reserves,” the Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said in a statement on social media.
Russia’s capture of the hamlet with a pre-war population of around 1,000 people, is the latest around Severodonetsk, where Moscow’s army has met tough Ukrainian resistance.
Russian troops have slowly advanced in the eastern Donbas region where they focused their military efforts after being pushed out from areas around the capital at the start of their invasion in February.
Gaiday said that the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk, where hundreds of civilians are said to be sheltering, was being shelled by Russian forces “constantly”.
The head of the city administration, Oleksandr Stryuk meanwhile told Ukrainian television Monday that Moscow’s army controls most of the city’s residential areas.
“If we talk about the whole city, still more than a third is controlled by our armed forces. Russians control the rest,” he said.
“There are street battles around the clock,” he added, saying Ukrainian troops were being shelled routinely.
“The enemy is throwing more and more manpower into the offensive, to storm the city and push out our soldiers,” Stryuk said.
Evacuations from Severodonetsk have not been possible for days, after a last bridge across the river connecting it to Lysychansk was blown up.
In his evening address on Sunday, Zelenskyy said there had been “few such fateful decisions for Ukraine” as the one it expects from the EU this week.
“Only a positive decision is in the interests of the whole of Europe,” he said.
Obviously, we expect Russia to intensify hostile activity this week… We are preparing. We are ready.
Moscow’s forces have been pummelling eastern Ukraine for weeks as they try to seize the Donbas region, after being repelled from other parts of the country following their February invasion.
Grain blockade
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said this morning that Russia should be held “accountable” if it keeps blocking the export of vitally needed grain from Ukraine.
“One cannot imagine that millions of tonnes of wheat remain blocked in Ukraine while in the rest of the world people are suffering hunger. This is a real war crime,” Borrell said at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers.
The West has demanded Moscow stop blockading Ukraine’s Black Sea ports to allow vast stores of grain to be taken to world markets as fears rise of famines in vulnerable regions.
The EU backs United Nation efforts to mediate a deal between Ukraine, Russia and Turkey to get the grain out but these have failed to make any headway so far.
The 27-nation bloc has struggled to counter Moscow’s claims that rising prices and shortfalls in the Middle East and Africa are down to EU sanctions imposed over the invasion of Ukraine.
“I want to insist that it’s not European sanctions that are creating this crisis — our sanctions don’t target food, don’t target fertilisers,” Borrell said.
“The problem comes from the Russian blockade of Ukrainian grains.”
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna insisted that “Russia must stop playing with global hunger” as it seeks leverage on the West.
“Leaving cereals blocked is dangerous for stability in the world,” she said.
On Friday, Brussels backed Kyiv’s bid for EU candidate status after the heads of the bloc’s biggest members – France, Germany and Italy – paid a visit to the Ukrainian capital.
Ukraine could join the list of countries vying for membership as early as this week, when member state leaders meet at a Brussels summit.
But officials and leaders in the bloc caution that, even with candidacy status, membership could take years.
Nato’s chief Jens Stoltenberg meanwhile warned that the war could grind on “for years” and urged Western countries to be ready to offer long-term military, political and economic aid.
“We must not weaken in our support of Ukraine, even if the costs are high – not only in terms of military support but also because of rising energy and food prices,” Stoltenberg told German daily newspaper Bild.
Ukraine has repeatedly urged Western countries to step up their deliveries of arms, despite warnings from nuclear-armed Russia that it could trigger wider conflict.
Zelenskyy made a rare trip outside Kyiv Saturday to the hold-out Black Sea city of Mykolaiv, where he visited troops nearby and in the neighbouring Odessa region for the first time since the invasion.
“We will not give away the south to anyone, we will return everything that’s ours and the sea will be Ukrainian and safe,” he said in a video posted on Telegram as he made his way back to Kyiv.
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