There’s no blockade of Kaliningrad. It’s just that since last weekend, sanctions have been into force on some of the goods included in the so-called sanctions package, namely steel and ferrous metals, and accordingly, railway customers or contracting parties have been informed about the application of these sanctions and that these goods cannot be loaded and transported.

Facts:

Kaliningrad is part of Russian Federation sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. Thirty years ago, with both Russia and Lithuania leaving the USSR, a treaty was signed that guaranteed the Kaliningrad Oblast access to the rest of the Russian Federation through Lithuania. Goods were sealed and could not be unloaded within Lithuania, no documentation was required, the train enters Lithuania and leaves Lithuania with the same passengers and goods. Simple.

Now of course the western media are repeating the nonsense that the Lithuanian government is going on about having to implement EU sanctions - this is almost repeated ad-nauseum. It is utterly wrong. Here’s the EU document on the sanctions it implemented and the important bit:

The ban does not affect mail services and goods in transit between Kaliningrad Oblast and Russia.

Simple, yet not a single western news source I’ve viewed this evening mentions such a basic fact to challenge Lithuania’s narrative. Of course, the ban doesn’t affect any goods in transit - because they’re by definition not being imported or exported, they’re moving between one part of the Russian Federation and another.

Frankly in any other time the blockade would be viewed as an act of war, luckily for us the Russian government probably have more sense than to fall for a clear US-NATO provocation, as the US (and their satellites in eastern Europe) seem desperate to escalate the war with Russia and risk a nuclear holocaust.

Update (24th July)

Hidden away on the BBC News site yesterday was a small article that mentioned:

Lithuania has lifted a ban on the rail transport of sanctioned goods in and out of the Russian area of Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad is on the Baltic Sea and uses a rail link to Russia via Lithuania for passengers and freight. Russia was enraged when Lithuania banned the transit of steel and other ferrous metals under EU sanctions last month, and threatened to respond. But now Lithuanian Railways says it will resume transporting goods to the exclave.

Guess it wasn’t about implementing EU sanctions was it? It was all about the government of Lithuania trying to garner support from some nationalists with some anti-Russian headlines as inflation rips through their country at over 20%. Sadly our media repeated it without any fact checking.

Henry Kissinger

US Secretary of State.

Ukraine should not join NATO, a position I took seven years ago, when it last came up.

To treat Ukraine as part of an East-West confrontation would scuttle for decades any prospect to bring Russia and the West — especially Russia and Europe — into a cooperative international system.

The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709 , were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet — Russia’s means of projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia.

Ukraine has been independent for only 23 years; it had previously been under some kind of foreign rule since the 14th century. Not surprisingly, its leaders have not learned the art of compromise, even less of historical perspective. The politics of post-independence Ukraine clearly demonstrates that the root of the problem lies in efforts by Ukrainian politicians to impose their will on recalcitrant parts of the country, first by one faction, then by the other.

Washington Post, 2014

John Mearsheimer

US geopolitical scholar.

I actually think what’s going on here is that the West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and that the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked. I believe the policy I’m advocating of neutralising Ukraine and then building it up economically and getting out of the competition between Russia on one side and NATO on the other is the best thing that could happen to the Ukrainians.

What we’re doing is encouraging the Ukrainians to play tough with the Russians, we’re encouraging the Ukrainians to think ultimately they will become part of the West because we will ultimately defeat Putin and we will ultimately get our way, time is on our side. Of course the Ukrainians are playing along with this and the Ukrainians are almost completely unwilling to compromise with the Russians and instead want to pursue a hard-line policy and as I’ve said to you before if they do that end result is their country is going to be wrecked and what we’re in effect doing is encouraging that outcome.

I think it would make much more sense for us to work to create a neutral Ukraine.

From 2014.

George Kennan

US Ambassador to the Soviet Union.

I think it is the beginning of a new cold war, I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.

I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don’t people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.

NATO expansion set up a situation in which NATO now has to either expand all the way to Russia’s border, triggering a new cold war, or stop expanding after these three new countries and create a new dividing line through Europe

Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia, it shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are – but this is just wrong.

New York Times, 1998

Jack F. Matlock Jr

US Ambassador to the Soviet Union.

NATO expansion was the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. In 1997, when the question of adding more NATO members arose, I was asked to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In my introductory remarks, I made the following statement:

I consider the administration’s recommendation to take new members into NATO at this time misguided. If it should be approved by the United States Senate, it may well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. Far from improving the security of the United States, its Allies, and the nations that wish to enter the Alliance, it could well encourage a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat to this nation since the Soviet Union collapsed. Indeed, our nuclear arsenals were capable of ending the possibility of civilization on Earth.

Adding countries in Eastern Europe to NATO continued during the George W. Bush administration but that was not the only thing that stimulated Russian objection. At the same time, the United States began withdrawing from the arms control treaties that had tempered, for a time, an irrational and dangerous arms race and were the foundation agreements for ending the Cold War. The most significant was the decision to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty which had been the cornerstone treaty for the series of agreements that halted for a time the nuclear arms race.

After 9/11, Putin was the first foreign leader to call President Bush and offer support. He was as good as his word by facilitating the attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It was clear at that time that Putin aspired to a security partnership with the United States as the jihadist terrorists who were targeting the United States were also targeting Russia. Nevertheless, Washington continued its course of ignoring Russian (and also allied) interests by invading Iraq, an act of aggression that not only Russia opposed, but also France and Germany.

Responsible Statecraft

William Perry

US Defence Secretary.

I did not believe that the timing was right to push for NATO enlargement. Most important, we needed to keep moving forward with Russia, and I feared that NATO enlargement and this time would shove us into reverse.

I went to President Clinton, explained by concerns and asked for a full meeting of the National Security Council to air my concerns and my arguments for a delay. I was amazed by the dynamics of the meeting. Neither Secretary of State Warren Christopher nor National Security Adviser Anthony Lake spoke out. The opposing arguments were made instead by Vice President Gore, and he made a forceful argument in favour of immediate membership, an argument more persuasive to the present than mine.

Stephen Cohen

Scholar of Russian studies.

if we move NATO forces toward Russia’s borders […] it’s obviously gonna militarize the situation [and] Russia will not back off, this is existential.

From 2014.

Noam Chomsky

The idea that Ukraine might join a Western military alliance would be quite unacceptable to any Russian leader.

[Joining NATO] would threaten Ukraine with a major war. The point is this is a serious strategic threat to Russia, which any Russian leader would have to react to. That’s well understood.

From 2015.

Prior to the war starting, it was estimated that Russia had amassed approx. 120,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders. That might sound a lot to the general public, but Ukraine’s forces are, according to Wikipedia, made up of 245,000 active personal and a further 220,000 reservists.

Russian forces are outnumbered 2 to 1 and potentially 4 to 1 once the reservists are mobilised, the media have been reporting that all men between 18-60 are being blocked from leaving the country and required to enlist. The Russian forces simply are not equipped to conquer or occupy Ukraine. That’s literally what the Russians have been saying and the evidence on the ground clearly backs that up, despite the nonsense coming out of the West.

What did Iraq look like?

The last major war the West fought that sought to occupy a country was Iraq in 2003. The coalition forces involved in that numbered 380,000. Over 3 times as many troops as Russia is using for its invasion of Ukraine.

Despite Iraq being far weaker militarily than Ukraine is today - Ukraine has had 8 years of training and supplies from the West up until this point. Additionally in Iraq, especially southern Iraq where the invasion was launched from is mostly open desert, Iraqi forces have no forests or cities to hide in and could be easily monitoring by airborne reconnaissance and picked off from the air. In Ukraine it is easy to conceal armoured units from the much inferior Russian reconnaissance, either by parking them between blocks of flats or under other forms of cover.

They also haven’t been targeting key infrastructure like power, or communications. Every time the West has launched “shock-and-awe” campaigns those are literally some of the first things to be taken out its almost like they’re trying to avoid too much damage for fear of substantial reparations coming up in any negotiations.

If you compare the Russian force to how Western forces have done occupations recently, it doesn’t look like it’s out to occupy Ukraine at all. I suspect it’s just there to bring about a negotiated settlement as soon as possible.

The Kiev distraction

There’s been a lot in the press the last day or so about the 40-mile-long convoy of armour that is approaching Kiev. I don’t think this force is large enough to take Kiev and probably not to even encircle it, the Guardian reported that the Russian forces in Belarus are probably around 30,000 in number a few weeks ago which is where these units came from. Nevertheless, this is trotted out as evidence that Russia is out to occupy Ukraine.

I think the real plan would be to use this force to lure troops away from Donetsk and Lugansk. Then potentially encircle the more significant Ukrainian forces in the east of the country by pushing out the front between Kharkov and Zaporizhzhia. The Ukrianian troops there are heavily dug into their positions from eight years of fighting against the people of Donetsk and Lugansk, weakening their positions would surely be a priority.

So what’s Putin actually after?

On day one of the conflict the terms offered consisted of:

• Amend constitution to remove ambition to join NATO and become a neutral country
• Recognise Crimea as part of the Russian Federation
• Recognise independence of Donetsk and Lugansk

These are basically pretty much what Russia has been going on about for years - bar independence of Donetsk and Lugansk. The Minsk Agreement that Ukraine agreed to in 2014 called on it to recognise them as autonomous regions of Ukraine - which has been Moscow’s position up until Putin announced he recognised Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states on the 21st of February 2022.

Over the last few years Putin has also talked a lot about Novorossiya - New Russia, as shown on the map above. The area that Russia gained mostly from the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century. It was sparsely populated until Catherine the Great founded multiple cities in the area such as:

• Yelisavetgrad (Kropyvnytskyi) (1754)
• Aleksandrovsk (Zaporizhzhia) (1770)
• Yekaterinoslav (Dnipro) (1776)
• Kherson (1778)
• Mariupol (1778)
• Sevastopol (1783)
• Simferopol (1784)
• Melitopol (1784)
• Pavlohrad (1784)
• Nikolaev (Mykolaiv) (1789)
• Tiraspol (1792)
• Odessa (1794)

You’ll probably recognise a lot of those names from news coverage at the moment, as that’s where a lot of the key fighting is going on. It’s possible maybe Putin is also going for the land bridge to Crimea, which coincides with a lot of the territory of Novorossiya. Crimea has suffered from a lack of fresh water since Ukraine blocked the North Crimean Canal in 2014 so to some this seems an obvious move as this could be re-opened.

Putin has been saying these lands were unfairly given to the Ukrainian SSR by Lenin and the Bolshevik’s in 1922. At the time moving territory between different equal Union Republics didn’t actually mean much difference on the ground, and it probably made sense to administrate them from Kiev. Some have called this historical revisionism or Kremlin propaganda, but frankly its accurate, the Bolshevik’s policy at the time was basically look as different from the Russian Empire as possible.

Quite ironic as some of the western media are literally saying he wants to re-create the USSR - ignoring the fact he’s criticising Soviet policy. If they want to do historical comparisons, re-creating the Russian Empire is probably more apt.

But if that was really the case, why isn’t that on Putin’s list of terms?

Or will the plan be to hold the area east of the Dnieper to Donetsk until eventually there is a negotiated peace. Or possibly even to Odessa and maybe Transnistria assuming they can get across the Pivdennyi Buh. Although in a longer conflict the position east of the Dnieper would be much easier to hold.

My thoughts

Firstly, because everyone on the internet assumes because I’m not a fan of the Ukrainian government or their frankly criminal treatment of their own citizens that I must be a Putin stooge or support the invasion or something.

I’m no fan of Putin and if he gets overthrown on the back of this, that’ll actually be a really good outcome. How likely is that? Pretty unlikely.

Additionally widening the existing conflict outside of Donetsk and Lugansk is probably unjustified in my opinion. However a limited peacekeeping force to render the Ukrainian military unable to fight in Donetsk and Lugansk – like they agreed to do in the Minsk Agreement – would probably be justified, Ukraine has had 8 years to do this and they’ve just funnelled more weapons into the civil war and unleashed some really regressive far-right elements.

But nevertheless, it has now been done and the question surely must be how can we get back to a peace and avoid any more deaths?

In my opinion the terms Russia offered are quite reasonable. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a neutral country, it works great for Sweden, Finland, Austria etc.

Recognising Crimea is basically at this point just recognising reality, they voted to join the Russian Federation 8 years ago, they pay taxes in Russia, they’re Russian.

Recognising Donetsk and Lugansk as independent may be harder to swallow – but they had 8 years to stop fighting and choose to carry on regardless, killing 15,000 of their own people. But perhaps this is the area Moscow is willing to shelve and revert to a Minsk Agreement that’s actually enforced?

The West sending more arms to Ukraine is only going to get more people killed, but of course they’re doing it out of their own geopolitical interests, and they don’t care how many Ukrainians get killed. If you genuinely support peace, a negotiated settlement should have everyone’s support.

1949

• NATO founded, original members include Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal the United Kingdom and the United States of America all agree that an attack on one is an attack on all, essentially a defensive alliance excluding any attacks on colonies.

1954

West Germany: Hey can we join the alliance?

US: Sure.

USSR: Hey guys we’re a bit worried about this big alliance you’ve got and we’re bit concerned that its growing, any chance we could join too?

US: No.

1955

• Warsaw Pact founded, the military part of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, original members include Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, USSR all pledged the mutual defence of any member who would be attacked; relations among the treaty signatories were based upon mutual non-intervention in the internal affairs of the member countries, respect for national sovereignty, and political independence.

1989

East Germany: Hey its been over 40 years now, we wanna re-unite with West Germany, we promise we won’t do any more of the war thing.

West Germany: Yeah we can do that.

USSR: Okay, but we want this new Germany to become a neutral country, the last time they were united 30 million of our people died in the bloodiest war in human history.

NATO: No, a united Germany will inherit West Germany’s NATO membership.

USSR: …

NATO: Okay we won’t station any foreign troops or nuclear weapons in the eastern part of Germany nor grow the alliance further east.

USSR: Okay deal.

1991

• End of Warsaw Pact and USSR. The Russian Federation inherits the USSR’s seat on the UN, its international treaties etc.

1993

NATO: Hey what about expanding into the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

Russia: Err you guys said you wouldn’t.

1995

• NATO goes to war against the Bosnian Serbs.

Russia: I thought you guys were a defensive alliance?

1999

• Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland join NATO.

Russia: Err you guys said you wouldn’t. But since the alliance is growing any chance we could join too?

US: No.

• NATO goes to war against Serbia.

Russia: I thought you guys were a defensive alliance?

2001

• NATO goes to war against Afghanistan.

Russia: I thought you guys were a defensive alliance?

2004

• Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia join NATO.

Russia: Remember when you said about not expanding NATO?

NATO: Sod off.

2009

• Albania and Croatia join NATO.

NATO: Before you say anything sod off.

2011

• NATO goes to war against Libya.

Russia: You’re attacking people? I thought you guys were a defensive alliance?

2013

Ukraine: We want to have closer ties to both Russia and the EU/the West for trade, development, not military.

Russia: No problem.

EU/the West: No if you want relations with us they’ll be exclusively with us and you’ll need to pull out of EAEU etc.

Ukraine: Never mind then we’ve got more ties already to Russia, a lot of our people are Russian, and they’re our biggest trading partner so I guess we’ll just carry on.

2014

• The Ukrainian government is overthrown in western-backed coup d’état.

Ukraine: We want closer ties to the EU and to join NATO.

Russia: Errrr? We don’t really want more NATO members on our borders, how about Ukraine remaining neutral?

Ukraine/the West: Don’t tell us what to do.

• The people in the east of Ukraine rebel against the government they didn’t vote for.

Russia/the West: We’re concerned about the fighting going on, any chance you could sign this Minsk Peace Treaty, saying you’ll recognise these regions as autonomous parts of Ukraine and end the fighting?

Ukraine: Okay sure.

2015

Ukraine: Actually, we lied, but what are you going to do about it?

NATO: Don’t worry we’ll send more weapons and trainers to Ukraine.

Russia: Err guys… Those are the weapons they’re using to kill the people there?

NATO: Sod off.

2017

• Montenegro joins NATO.

Russia: Guys?

NATO: Sod off.

2020

• North Macedonia joins NATO.

Russia: Remember the agreement?

NATO: Sod off.

2021

Russia: We’re still concerned Ukraine is killing people in eastern Ukraine, this is right on our border, 15,000 people have died now? Hello? Anybody?

• Russia moves troops to border.

NATO: OMG why are you so aggressive, what do you want?

Russia: We think the Minsk Peace Treaty should be enforced, and we also want guarantees that Ukraine won’t join NATO, we think it’s better for everyone if Ukraine remains neutral.

NATO: No.

As you can expect from any member of current the British government, Liz Truss was completely out of her depth, hadn’t read her brief (or at least understood it) and had the usual total lack of understanding regarding the Russian position.

At the press conference following the meeting that lasted approximately two hours, Sergey Lavrov said he had spoken in great detail about the security guarantees Russia wants from NATO but said “It was like a conversation with a deaf person” and that is was like talking to someone “who is here, but doesn’t hear.” Liz Truss later saying that the UK is resolute in finding a diplomatic path to avoid war.

Of course a bit rich coming from the west, who guaranteed there would be no further eastern expansion of NATO following the re-unification of Germany.

The same west that orchestrated the 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine against the democratically elected government, because they didn’t like the result. Replacing it with a government comprised of far-right ultra-nationalists and white-supremacists all too busy glorifying Nazi-collaborators than actually governing the country, resulting in rebellion in Donetsk and Luhansk and wide-spread attacks on the 20% ethnically Russian (rising to over 50% in eastern and southern Ukraine) population by neo-Nazis. Crimea voted 97% in favour of re-joining the Russian Federation with an 83% voter turnout to get away from the Ukrainian nationalists.

Showing how badly Liz Truss misunderstands the situation after demanding that Russia moves its troops away from the border, Lavrov asked if she “recognised Russian sovereignty over the Rostov and Voronezh regions?”. Liz Truss replying with ‎"The UK will never recognize Russia’s sovereignty over those regions".

What a joke. She had to be saved by the ambassador who explained Rostov and Voronezh are part of Russia. It wasn’t even like Lavrov was trying to trip her up - these are literally the regions where the Russian troop build-ups have been happening - she hadn’t even read her brief.

How typical of the west, demanding where Russia can station its troops within its own country - meanwhile having half of its own military forces around the otherside of the world and stationed in countries surrounding Russia.

Further embarrassment has also been caused recently when Liz Truss said “we are supplying and offering extra support into our Baltic allies across the Black Sea.”

Russian Foreign Office spokesman Maria Zakharova, didn’t hold back:

“Ms Truss, your knowledge of history is nothing compared to your knowledge of geography. If anyone needs saving from anything, it’s the world, from the stupidity and ignorance of British politicians.”

Earlier this month:

Supermarket bills set to sour due to EU red tape. Ahhh yes the “new” EU red-tape we avoided by being members. Of course they use the language “new” to imply these are recent changes the EU have made, and as such trying to imply its the EU’s fault. They’re not, its the same import and export related paperwork and all the rest that all other countries around the world need to do in order to trade.

Obviously if you put up trade barriers - even if its tariff-free, there’s still additional paperwork and delays and hence such additional costs, that’s why we had a good deal as members because we were part of a trade block of 27 other countries, whereby all agreeing a common set of standards, we could avoid all the usual checks most other countries around the world need to do when trading.

You wanted a border between us, you’ve got one. Now deal with the consequences and take responsibility for your decision.

The Daily Express, buried under all the fake-outrage, ultra nationalism and clickbait headlines actually goes on to mention some figures:

“But I am sure he would agree we have a particular problem at the moment with the export of animals, meat and shellfish, where exports are down by between 56 and 83 percent.”

The Daily Express goes on to mention more figures:

Overall goods exports from the UK fell by £5.3 billion, 19.3 percent, in January. It was driven by a £5.6 billion, or 40.7 percent, plunge in exports of goods to the EU, the ONS said. A £200 million, 1.7 percent, increase in non-EU exports failed to make up for the decline within the bloc.

Of course, it cannot be relied upon that the typical rabid Brexiteer or Daily Express reader actually has the concentration span necessary to read further down the article and get to the actual facts. I mean in this case it honestly seems like the Express is trolling their readers by literally giving them the data on how Brexit is such a disaster for Britain - almost knowing themselves that their readers won’t get to the bottom of the article before angrily sharing on social media.

EU's 'devastating' Brexit export ban cripples UK fishing industry

Should read: United Kingdom leaving the European Union, means its no longer treated like an EU member. Ya know like the Daily Express wanted...?

Nicki Holmyard, director of Offshore Shellfish in Brixham, Devon, said she is bracing for the "disastrous" worst case scenario of having to close her shellfish farm due to the post-Brexit trade fiasco.

Despite mounting pressure to relax the rules, Brussels has said it will stick firmly to the ban indefinitely because the UK is now a third country.

Misleading again, making it seem like this is a new rule that the European Union has come up with to go along with the punish Britain for leaving, it isn't. It's been like it for decades, the UK helped write the rules when it was a member.

Why should the EU change their rules to suit us? It's no surprise to anybody with the smallest amount of knowledge - that when you leave a club you no longer get the benefits of that club. But of course nothing will stop the Brexiteers raging at being proved wrong.

Tory press bullying Meghan Markle again

Meanwhile we're stuck with a government that's left over one hundred thousand British citizens dead, while simultaneously giving the survivors the worst economic decline in the western world. A government that continues to get away with that and dishing out dodgy contracts to their donors as they break transparency laws with not a word about it mentioned in most of the press.