Posted on 10/02/2013 9:26:41 AM PDT by kronos77
The Lithuanian Foreign Minister says his country could block land transport to Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad if Russia maintains its opposition to stronger trade ties between Ukraine and the European Union.
"As you know, the Kaliningrad region is isolated, geographically isolated, so we could apply some measures also to cut something," the Reuters news agency quoted Linas Linkevicius as saying on Wednesday. "Transport, we could cut off trains, but not only trains, also the supply of goods, whatever. It is theoretically possible," the official added.
The reporters raised the topic as Lithuania, which currently holds the rotating presidency in the EU, is preparing to host the Third Eastern Partnership Summit– the major conference dedicated to strengthening trade ties between the European economic bloc and six states in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. All of these countries are Russian neighbors and close economic partners.
Russia is currently building its own economic bloc – the Customs Union – which currently consists of itself, Belarus and Kazakhstan, but to which it welcomes other neighboring nations.
However, the Russian initiative is being opposed by top European officials. As the Ukrainian government was negotiating its association agreement with the EU in September this year, the head of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy said that after the association it would be impossible for Ukraine to participate in the Customs Union.
Also in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that if Ukraine first joined the Customs Union it could negotiate its further cooperation with the EU on much better terms. “We hold that such a move would support our common interests – ours and Ukrainian,” Putin told reporters and experts at the closing session of the Valdai Discussion Club.
(Excerpt) Read more at rt.com ...
Still you've taken the burden of explaining a 'pun' which is of clumsy nature (too peripherical topic for people with American cultural background). That's why you've needed two attempts doing this. Speaking about the said Russian-Lithuanian conflict I heard the reason was that Russian customs officers had performed total customs checks on Lithuanian lorries, unlike on others, in response to this an Lithuanian official threatened to severe existing land railway access to Kaliningrad from mainland Russia. Probably the situation has a historical parallel with Danzig's post WWI history, but that's not about Russians demanding extra-privileges on railway access.
It was the West, Western allies, represented by the US and Britain who surrendered to Russia in Yalta and Tehran. Russia certainly didn’t surrender to itself.
If we continue this logic we'll have that the Nazi Germany was the only West, who didn't surrender to the Soviet Union in Tehran and Yalta. Because Germany is no less 'West' than the UK or the USA.
*crickets*
I think you have to explain it more simply and in bold fonts.
:p
The Danzig corridor is a peripheral topic? You’re correct, it is, even though it was the direct reason for the start of WWII (even Wiki knows it and mentions the diplomatic exchange between Germany and Poland of August 1939.)
As for historical parallels, they’re never exact, are they, or we wouldn’t understand the painting by John McNaughton which shows Obama playing a fiddle while in the background Washington burns.
The Kaliningrad district, by the way, is the wealthiest region of Russia, its traffic jams filled with luxury cars, I’ve read, while the citizens driving to shop across the border to Poland where prices are lower.
For American and/or Russian public - yes. It's not a part of the national histories. For German public and especially Polish (for what sin did God punish us?) -it's not peripherial.
The Kaliningrad district, by the way, is the wealthiest region of Russia, its traffic jams filled with luxury cars, I’ve read, while the citizens driving to shop across the border to Poland where prices are lower.
It's not so. The wealthiest region of Russia is Moscow city. People driving abroad for shopping are in any border province (St. Petersberg - Finland, Smolensk - Belarus, Vladivostok or Khabarovsk, - China and even Siberia -Kazakhstan).
There is nothing you don’t know better, is there?!
There're things I don't know, but they're not about the facts you have mentioned.
God Bless Vladimir Putin, Patriarch Kyril, and the Russian people.
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