Thus far, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has delivered huge harm and devastation upon the latter nation, prompted 1000’s of fatalities to civilians and army personnel alike, had a rising adverse affect on the Russian economic system and shattered the parable of an invincible, unstoppable Russian military.
As a substitute, we now have all been observing the tactical (and strategic) behaviour and ability of the Ukrainian forces, as they’ve more and more been bolstered with trendy, first-line Western army materiel. As increasingly more of that weaponry comes into play, there’s even the tantalising chance the Russian invaders will probably be dealing with a bigger, theatre-wide defeat — over time.
If that’s the case, this may come at an excellent value to the defenders, in what has grow to be what the army planners name a brutal struggle of attrition. So successful, nevertheless, will come regardless of ongoing Russian advances in Jap Ukraine.
In fact, the implications of this invasion, past the affect on Ukraine, now embody a possible disaster on meals safety in Africa and the Center East.
The huge exports of grains and edible oils from Ukraine have largely been halted by a Russian naval blockade of Ukraine’s remaining ports, and the provides are usually not leaving Ukraine for his or her supposed recipients.
Furthermore, the 2 long-time impartial nations of Sweden and Finland have made a decisive break with their post-World Struggle 2 historical past of neutrality within the Chilly Struggle, and have sought membership in Nato, now, as Russia’s army strikes have dispelled illusions about its present (and sure future) behaviour in direction of these two Scandinavian nations.
Concurrently, Ukraine is now hoping to fast-track its admission to the European Union (and an affiliation with Nato nonetheless a fascinating purpose for the beleaguered nation).
However now, there’s one other side to the battle few anticipated would grow to be vital. It has the potential for turning into a clumsy strategic query for Russia, even when it doesn’t evolve into an precise capturing struggle.
Kaliningrad and Lithuania
This, in fact, considerations the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. The Kaliningrad Oblast [county], and the primary metropolis inside it by the identical identify, is a smallish piece of territory bordered by the Baltic Sea, Lithuania and Poland. It’s situated nicely to the west of the remainder of Russia and there’s no direct land connection between the enclave and Russia.
There are a number of strategically vital points to Kaliningrad’s circumstances. To start with, nearly every thing that arrives in Kaliningrad from the remainder of Russia — from gasoline to meals to client items — till now, has been arriving by trains that move via Lithuania. However, these shipments are to be (or have already got been) restricted as a result of mixed weight of sanctions and punitive commerce restrictions being imposed on Russia by EU nations and the Nato alliance on account of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
These restrictions are producing some sharp verbal responses by Russia, however with the warning of more and more dire penalties ought to the restrictions proceed. These restrictions will definitely make it far more tough to produce the inhabitants of the territory with their wanted provides, in addition to supporting the army readiness of Russian forces deployed to Kaliningrad — together with, reportedly, nuclear missile emplacements.
As Protection News reported on 22 June, “Lithuania imposed a floor transit ban of EU sanctioned Russian items via its territory on Saturday, chopping off the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast [county]. The governor of the oblast, Anton Alikhanov, mentioned the ban will block half of all items coming into the territory, nearly all of which journey through railroad. The ban can even minimize off Kaliningrad’s solely oil pipeline from Russia.
“The transfer comes on high of the EU flight ban of 21 Russian-certified airways in April, stopping items from being flown into Kaliningrad as nicely. The one uninterrupted methodology of transit left to the territory now could be by the use of the ocean via worldwide waters. In response, Russia mentioned Lithuania will face ‘critical’ unspecified penalties for the actions.
“With Lithuania being a Nato member, any direct army motion by Russia would set off Article 5 of the treaty and the whole thing of the alliance could be at struggle with Russia.
“Throughout the State of the Union Deal with, U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to defend ‘each inch’ of Nato territory. In March, the U.S. bolstered its presence in Lithuania, bringing the variety of troopers stationed within the nation to round 1,000.”
Protection News went on to notice that “Russia has known as the transit ban a ‘blockade’ and mentioned the transfer is a violation of worldwide legislation…”
Lithuania defended the ban, saying it’s merely a step taken to adjust to the EU sanctions which have been carried out on Russia since their invasion of Ukraine in late February.
“‘The transit of passengers and non-sanctioned items to and from the Kaliningrad area via Lithuania continues uninterrupted,’ the Lithuanian International Ministry mentioned in a press release. ‘Lithuania has not imposed any unilateral, particular person, or further restrictions on the transit. Lithuania constantly implements EU sanctions, which have completely different transition durations and dates of entry into drive.’”
Baltic Sea
The second significance of the territory is that as a result of its port stays ice-free over the winter, it’s, in actual fact, Russia’s solely constantly ice-free port on the Baltic Sea. This makes it strategically vital for year-round operations by Russia’s Baltic Sea naval forces.
This apparently unanticipated (by the Russians, no less than) transfer by Lithuania — on behalf of the Nato alliance — has clearly rattled Russians who already should contend of their strategic planning with the doubling of the direct Russia-Nato border, by advantage of the approaching accession of Finland (and Sweden) into Nato.
This makes the Baltic Sea a type of Nato-controlled lake and has added to the potential for naval watch posts on Swedish and Finnish islands situated within the Baltic, and patrols extending outward from them.
Russian naval vessels will more and more discover their circumstances that rather more tough every time they try to traverse these sea lanes. This will probably be whether or not they intend to sail into the Atlantic or to return from prolonged patrols past the Baltic. Such vessels will discover themselves much more successfully tracked and monitored by Nato naval and air items in future.
Russia’s acquisition
However how did Russia find yourself with this wedge of territory beneath its management, separate from the remainder of the nation and tucked awkwardly in between Lithuania and Poland?
Kaliningrad is the northern half of what was known as Germany’s province of East Prussia. Initially the house of the (non-Germanic) Prussians some 900 years in the past, the area was conquered and Christianised by the army campaigns of the Teutonic Knights. Subsequently, Prussia was partially conquered by the Poles after the First Battle of Tannenberg, though they finally misplaced the area to the small German kingdom of Brandenburg following the decline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Brandenburg was finally renamed Brandenburg-Prussia, then finally merely Prussia in recognition of that lengthy German historical past of conquest.
Prussia led the unification of the German states into one nation in 1870. Through the years, the town of Konigsburg had grow to be an vital centre of schooling and tradition, with notables such because the thinker Immanuel Kant and the author/composer ETH Hoffman in residence there.
On the finish of World Struggle 1, East Prussia was divided from the remainder of Germany by the Polish Hall and Danzig — thus turning into yet one more grievance for German irredentism that led to the rise of the Nazis and Adolf Hitler.
After the full defeat of the Third Reich in 1945, the in depth destruction of East Prussia’s capital, and the conquest of the realm by the Purple Army as a part of its army advance on Berlin, the territorial switch to the Soviet Union occurred. (A portion of Prussia was additionally ceded to Poland when that nation’s borders had been shifted westward to incorporate former elements of Germany corresponding to Silesia and West Prussia, and surrendering elements of Ukraine to the Soviet Union.)
These territorial transfers had been agreed to on the Potsdam Convention by the victorious Allies.
Following that territorial change, these Germans who had not already fled the advance of the Purple Army had been forcibly repatriated to the remaining German territories, and a brand new inhabitants of ethnic Russians was moved into Prussia, with the area and capital now renamed in honour of Russian Revolution-era hero, Mikhail Kalinin. (Vladimir Putin’s now-divorced spouse was from Kaliningrad, simply by the way in which.)
Good neighbourhood
For Russians, Kaliningrad had been considered as a very good place to reside and work, particularly given its proximity to different non-Soviet Union territories and its circumstances as a preferential recipient of products, providers and authorities spending.
Till the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kaliningrad was provided by rail via a Lithuania that had additionally been a part of the Soviet Union. However, following the breakup of that nation, Kaliningrad’s place now turned an enclave bodily separated from Russia, and circumstances that had been much more complicated as soon as Poland and Lithuania shifted their affections westward and joined Nato and the EU.
An echo of Berlin
In an attention-grabbing manner, Kaliningrad may be seen as a type of echo of the place of West Berlin in the course of the Chilly Struggle, to the Russians’ evident unease and discomfort, given their ongoing army campaigns additional to the south in Ukraine.
Throughout the Chilly Struggle, the western half of Berlin was deep contained in the Warsaw Pact member, the German Democratic Republic, and surrounded by that nation’s troops, Soviet army items, and a excessive wall constructed totally across the Western half of the town. (Germany and its capital had been divided into zones of occupation on the finish of World Struggle 2, and people zones had been finally remodeled into the 2 nations — West and East Germany.) The notorious wall had been constructed in 1961 by East Germany to forestall the additional migration of its inhabitants to West Berlin or on to West Germany.
Through the years, Berlin had been the supply of a lot East-West stress. This started with the blockade across the western zones of the town again in 1948 that had required a large airlift of meals, gasoline and different provides into the town by Western air forces — together with crews and planes from South Africa.
Greater than 20 years later, in the course of the Kennedy administration, a Soviet risk of one other land blockade (or perhaps a potential motion of troops into the western elements of the town) was adopted by East Germany’s building of that wall and but extra tensions between the 2 nuclear superpowers.
In the end, nevertheless, the collapse of the East German regime led to the tip of the Warsaw Pact in addition to the outdated Soviet Union, then the unification of West and East Germany, and finally the newly mixed nation’s place as a keystone of Nato.
All through the Chilly Struggle, Nato army strategists had been at all times apprehensive concerning the circumstances of Berlin, however they targeted much more obsessively on the potential for a Soviet mixed arms assault on Germany via the Fulda Hole of Thuringia on the idea that such an assault may show to be a decisive transfer that might cut up your entire army scenario within the Soviet Union’s favour.
Now, maybe, the Russians should ponder a second potential zone of battle they are going to in some way provoke that might really overstretch their army capabilities.
A last stray thought: In Russia’s daydreams about getting out of the mess they’ve created for themselves, maybe they could even contemplate the notion of returning their half of East Prussia to the Germans, as soon as the Ukrainian battle involves an finish and the Russians should reconfigure their strategic place in Jap Europe.
Now wouldn’t that be one thing to see. DM
