Lithuania Says It Will Continue To Keep Kaliningrad Trade Restrictions

Reuters: Lithuania to keep Kaliningrad trade restrictions while working out new rules 

VILNIUS — Lithuania will keep restrictions on Kaliningrad trade in place while it works out rules on how to resume the trade, Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said on Thursday. 

The European Commission said on Wednesday that sanctioned Russian goods could transit through the bloc's territory by rail to the enclave, after tensions between Moscow, Brussels and Lithuania escalated. 

"Controls will need to be in place for certain sanctioned freight... Lithuania will have to set rules for the controls, and until that time the current procedures will remain in place", Simonyte told a press conference. 

She gave no timeline for creating the new rules.  

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WNU Editor: Rail traffic is now permitted but severely restricted, and road traffic is blocked. Not surprising, no one is satisfied .... Europe Condemned for Caving to Russia on Kaliningrad Blockade: 'Pathetic' (Newsweek). More here .... Russia says EU ban on goods transit to Kaliningrad 'not resolved' (Reuters). 

An observation and prediction. 

The EU handling of this crisis is turning into a disaster. The EU is telling Russia directly that they are not only willing to permit Lithuania break the transit treaty between Russia and Kaliningrad, but that the transit itself is in jeopardy. 

In effect this crisis has now worsen because Russia now knows that it is not only Lithuania involved in this blockage of Russian goods, but also the EU. 

Like the Danzig corridor crisis in 1932 between Germany and Poland. The Berlin Airlift crisis between the West and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This current comparable crisis now exists, and it is inevitable sooner or later that Russia will want to resolve it. And the way I see it, looking at the geography, the only way to resolve it will be through military means. 

I do not know when this will happen. This year? Next year? Five years from now? But it will happen, and this will be another disastrous crisis between Russia and NATO (since Lithuania is a NATO country), and more evidence to me that the EU is oblivious on the long term consequences of their actions as the Russian - Ukraine war continues.