Formerly the East Prussian city of Königsberg, the city-state
of Kaliningrad was deeded to the USSR at Potsdam when East Prussia was divided
between Poland and the USSR. Most of the indigenous German population either
fled to what was then called Western Germany or were forcibly driven out in the
1950’s. It currently has a population of one million.
In the past transit to the Russian heartland through Soviet
dominated Poland or Lithuania was not an issue. That has changed. Since the
fall of the USSR and the emergence of the independent Baltic States there is no
land-link between Russia and Kaliningrad. The surrounded Russian enclave has
only land or air connection to the “Rodina”, Mother Russia.
Why does Russia hold on to it? For good reason. It also is
the only year-round ice-free Russian naval base on the Baltic and thus strategically
important especially to its nuclear submarine fleet needing access to the
Atlantic.
And then there is Crimea. The distance between the recent Anschluss-like
occupation of the peninsula and the rest of Russia is now the source of
increasing concern i.e. the perceived need for a land-bridge to connect Crimea
to Russia, hence the increasing unrest on the Eastern Ukrainian border with
Russia. Crimea after all assures Russia sole control of a major naval port on
the Black Sea with access to the Mediterranean. Sound familiar?
So why has not a similar insurgence happened to secure similar
access to Kaliningrad. Perhaps because both Poland and Lithuania are NATO
countries and such a move would on principle bring a reprisal from NATO's member
nations. Is there any other logical reason for Putin not sending his forces
across those international borders to join the two lands?
The “Sudetenland” reasoning voiced by Russia’s leader and
state controlled media need to be met not only by economic sanctions by the US
but by military assistance from European countries for Ukraine similar to what occurred
during the Kosovo crisis.
Failure to do so sends a message to Putin that
for sure the Poles and Lithuanians do not want.
