The Kremlin’s real headache: Losing Minsk would render Kaliningrad worthless

According to Paul Goble, an analyst for the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor, the findings are well founded, given what Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials in Moscow have said and done in recent years, not to mention the past few weeks. But these are essentially longer-term considerations, they have a more global scope than the factors that Moscow thinks in the short term, says Russian analyst Vadim Avva. In an article published on the Svobodnaya Dam, V. Avva clearly states that the Kremlin is currently primarily concerned about what changes in the Belarusian regime would mean for Moscow’s control of the Kaliningrad region. If Russia loses the battle for Minsk, says the commentator, the Russian government “would automatically surrender. [šį Rusijos eksklavą] to the enemy.

Among the reasons why Kaliningrad’s role in Russia’s deliberations on Belarus is ignored is the fact that Belarus does not have a common border with the enclave. The only land routes through Belarus that allow Moscow to reach its main military base in the Baltic Sea are through Poland and Lithuania, both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Therefore, on the basis of such a cursory review, it may appear that changes in the Belarusian regime would not significantly affect the Kaliningrad region. But Avva says that Moscow sees things differently. From Russia’s point of view, without Minsk, a friend of Moscow, Kaliningrad would be even more isolated and would become a problem both during war and peace.

In the event of war, Moscow would no longer be able to resort to the threat of seizing the territory called the Suwalki Corridor, a 100 km stretch between Belarus and the Kaliningrad region that connects Poland with Lithuania. Both Russian and Western military affairs analysts had previously predicted that Moscow would attempt to cut back this narrow NATO pass in the event of war.

By occupying this corridor, Russian forces could prevent the movement of people and goods from Poland to the three Baltic states. This would isolate these states and pave the way for the Russian forces against them. As such a scenario it would pose a serious threat to the Alliance and while various NATO members compare the Suwalki corridor to the Fulda Corridor of the Cold War era (an area in West Germany considered by many to be the best place for Soviet action against West in case of war), NATO military exercises in the region are ongoing. focused on defending this part of Poland from any attack by Russia.

If the Minsk government were to change course, Moscow would lose an important coastal area from which it is preparing to attack (or at least gives the impression that it will be attacked). Analysts from Russia, the West and China are unanimous in saying that without Russia’s control of the Suwalki corridor, Moscow would lose Kaliningrad in 48 hours. Even Western experts, who are generally less optimistic, say that if NATO could seize control of the Suwalki corridor, Moscow would lose its Baltic enclave in two weeks. For this reason, and regardless of whether Russia succeeds in deploying additional military facilities in Belarus, it is important to the Russian authorities in which direction Belarus will head after the end of Alexander Lukashenko’s rule.

However, even before the start of the war, Moscow is seriously concerned about what the loss of its position in Belarus would mean for Russia’s regional position in general and control of the Kaliningrad region in particular. One example is sufficient: Minsk’s reorientation in the other direction from Moscow would make it much more difficult for Russia to block the implementation of the E40 waterway project, or perhaps that possibility would disappear altogether. This highway between the Black and Baltic Seas would connect Ukraine, Belarus and Poland in a common economic and political zone, unlike the routes promoted by Russia.

The changes in Belarus would mean that Moscow would almost certainly face the most separatist demands of Kaliningrad itself. Regional and separatist demands in the Kaliningrad region intensified in the 1990s and 1990s, but Putin worked hard to suppress them.

However, last spring, a military court in this enclave convicted and sentenced some of the movement’s most prominent leaders who had not yet emigrated or been sent to prison to a lengthy prison term, a sign that it still exists. covert support for secessionist ideas in the region.

The Baltic Republican Party, a supporter of the idea of ​​an independent Kaliningrad region, has long supported the Belarusian movement against Lukashenko. Vadim Petrov, a member of the party currently living abroad, said: “We don’t want Belarus to become a bigger version of Kaliningrad.” In other words, Belarus does not want to become a fundamentalist colony in Moscow, militarized by the Kremlin to threaten European countries. Petrov added that the people of Kioningsberg (which Moscow renamed Königsberg after World War II) have a major problem with Belarus: “We are fighting together against the imperialist policies of the Kremlin.”

No doubt he and other residents of the enclave would see the shift from Minsk to the opposite side of Moscow as a sign that they must join forces and work in the same direction.

Moscow is well aware that there is such a risk. Therefore, there is no doubt that the Kremlin, when considering the question of Belarus, takes into account what could happen in the Baltic enclave in the event of war and peace. And because Moscow is behaving in this way, Western analysts should also pay attention to the issue, as this hitherto ignored factor could play a much bigger role in the coming weeks than many currently think, Goble doesn’t has no doubt.