Kaliningrad ‘blockade’ pulls back the curtain on border town’s fears
The daily sleeper train service from the Russian mainland to the exclave of Kaliningrad slid into its penultimate stop shrouded in mystery, curtains drawn, those on board shielded from the realities of the war in Ukraine.
You would be forgiven for thinking Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, had something to hide when the diesel locomotive and its dozen carriages were forced into the sidings by armed border guards primed to board.
Trains have crossed the border freely here in the years since the Iron Curtain fell and the heavily militarised Kaliningrad – about the size of Northern Ireland, wedged between Lithuania and Poland – was marooned from Moscow.
But this week decades of unfettered access came to a tense end when Lithuania blocked goods in transit to Kaliningrad, citing EU war sanctions.
In response, the Kremlin threatened Vilnius with “seriously negative” consequences unless what it calls a “blockade” of Kaliningrad is lifted with immediate effect.
Like the dozens of freight trains carrying key goods and food to the million Russians that live in the Baltic port region, the Moscow-kaliningrad sleeper service is just one of the victims of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. As it edged into an eerily deserted station in the frontier town of Kybartai yesterday, Russian passengers were forced to remain in their cramped cabins with the curtains closed as the diesel locomotive was uncoupled from the carriages and the new vigorous checks were carried out on those inside.
With independent media virtually eradicated in Russia, locals speculate that passengers, who travelled from Moscow via Minsk in Belarus, are kept on board to shield them from the truth about the war while on European soil.
So while their train is parked up for more than an hour, Kybartai offers the passengers access to a “free Wifi” network. The catch? Before they are granted access to the web, would-be browsers must scroll through a series of graphic images of Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Station posters featuring similar images await those brave enough to peek through the curtains.
The row over customs controls has only heightened fears among the Baltic states that Putin’s war could easily spill over into the rest of Europe.
Kybartai was calm yesterday, with its elderly residents tending vegetable patches outside their Soviet-era farm houses overlooking the no man’s land between them and Kaliningrad. Traffic crossed the frontier with ease every hour. One old man, with a suitcase in tow, made the journey on foot, joking with guards: “Russia this way?”
Despite this, there was nervousness in the air. With Kybartai just a stone’s throw from the exclave, locals know they would likely be on the frontline of any Russian attack on Nato. “We’re not far from it, you know,” said Romas, 18.
Like many Kybartai’s locals, Romas has family and friends in Kaliningrad and has noticed a shift in atmosphere in the wake of the sanctions stand-off. “Everything is fine, but in another country there is a war going on.”
Like annexed Crimea and Belarus, Kaliningrad is considered an ideal staging post for a potential Russian attack on Europe. The military exclave is home to Moscow’s Baltic naval fleet and Mr Putin has stationed both short and long-range missile systems there, leading some Western officials to ponder whether he could one day deploy nuclear weapons there, in the heart of the EU and Nato’s territory.
As a result of the tensions, Baltic leaders are expected to ask Nato allies to revise their plans in the event of a Russian invasion of the region. The so-called Suwalki Gap – a 62-mile corridor linking the tips of Kaliningrad and Belarus – is seen as a weak point in Nato’s defences against Russia.
Currently, if Lithuania, Estonia or Latvia were overrun by Moscow, the alliance would let it happen before liberating them after 180 days.
At a Nato summit in Madrid next week, the leaders of the three Baltic states will warn partners that their countries would be wiped off the map under the current defence plans.
The European Commission has been charged with attempting to defuse the tensions before they can escalate further. Until last week, Lithuania had allowed Russian freight shipments across its territory, even though much of it was subject to EU sanctions.
After receiving the go-ahead from Brussels, Vilnius started enforcing checks on iron, steel, luxury goods, coal and other items banned under the punitive measures.
To end the stand-off, the EC has proposed allowing the movement of goods if they are for Russia’s internal market, of which Kaliningrad is a part. But judging by the abandoned Russian freight trains in Kybartai, Lithuania has not backed down. “The story is simple: we just implemented the sanctions imposed in March,” Gitanas Nausėda, Lithuania’s president, said yesterday.
So, for now, Russians travelling to Kaliningrad will be forced to replicate Lenin’s “sealed-train” journey from Zurich to St Petersburg in 1917.
‘’We’re not far from it, you know. Everything is fine, but in another country there is a war going on’