There is a place in Europe where the inhabitants are as on edge as those who live in Kiev. AND Kaliningrad, Russia out of Russia, the exclave on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania, with a total of just under 500 inhabitants. And precisely those who live close to the are very nervous corridor of Suwalki, a 104 km long strip of land leading from Kaliningrad to Belarus and which is described by military experts as the Achilles heel of the Atlantic Alliance in northeastern Europe.
In the event of a Russian offensive against NATO - these experts say - it would be enough for Moscow to close this passage isolate all three Baltics from the rest of the Alliance, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, with the related NATO troops stationed on their territories. So that “Russia could take the control of the Baltic countries faster than we could defend them”, as General Ben Hodges, former commander of US troops in Europe, has always feared.
The war, after Kiev, so could move here, at any time. But if so, why are they afraid in Kaliningrad? After all, the region would be part of the attacker's team.
The fears of Kaliningrad
Beyond the simple observation that there is no war that is easy for those who attack or for those who defend themselves: dead and rubble are the same everywhere. There is something more in the case of Kaliningrad. And to understand it, you have to go a little deeper than his fate.
"Key" and "lock" at the same time, according to the beautiful definition that makes up geopolitics.info the scholar Nicolò Sorio, if Kaliningrad is the Achilles' heel for NATO, it represents for Russia the security dilemma paradigm.
When relations between Russians and Westerners tend to be beautiful – reflects Sorio – it appears as the strategic “key” to open the doors of Europe to the Federation. Hence it becomes the most advanced place of economic experimentation (it is the Free Zone), politics (the only Oblast', Region, led by a plenipotentiary with the powers of a real president), the vanguard of a hybrid system between centralism and liberalism. But when, as now, in relations between Moscow and the West, the barometer tends to be ugly, then the "key" is thrown away and Kaliningrad becomes only an impenetrable "lock".
It's like one day they tell you you're free and rich and the next they throw you in jail and deprive you of everything.
The history of Kaliningrad
Before the Soviet era, Kaliningrad (named after the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Kalinin) was called Koenisberg, and had been the capital of East Prussia, a piece of Germany separated from Germany after the First World War under the Treaty of Versailles, history repeats itself sometimes. Some things to keep in mind about Koenisberg: the philosopher Kant was born there and is the home of amber with 90% of the planet's mineral being mined here.
For those who love past history, we could add that it was founded by the Teutonic Knights in 1255: and to go back to more recent times, it shouldn't be forgotten either that here, in a bunker that has now become a museum, the last commander of the Nazi troops, Otto Lasch, he signed surrender to the Soviet Armyon April 9, 1945.
Koenigsberg, like Dresden and other German and European cities, was also completely destroyed by Allied bombs; at the end of the 300 inhabitants, only 20 remained, all Germans, "invited" by the victors to leave the city, since another "question of the Sudetenland" would never appear. One followed massive policy of Slavicization so much so that today, to give an idea, the exclave is called "little Russia".
The only port in the country where the sea never freezes, she was the flagship of the Soviet Navy, housing 32 submarines and an Armada of 90 men. The implosion of the empire in 1991 had terrible consequences: the army was disbanded, submarines went down to 2, soldiers didn't know what to do with their job. While the neighboring states, Poland, the Baltics, all countries of the former USSR, turned from friends into enemies.
Ma Moscow did not underestimate the danger of unraveling. The first president of the new Russia, Boris Yeltsin, recognizing its strategic value, proclaimed the territory Free Economic Zone, called Jantar, that is Amber in Russian, from one of the major resources of the region, as we have seen. And then he created the figure of President Plenipotentiary.
While relations with European countries and neighbors could be maintained without going through Moscow. Vilnius was seen to open a consulate in Kaliningrad, and a visa was not required to visit the two cities for at least thirty days. Russia "open" before Putin.
Putin's breakthrough: goodbye to Westernization
Then the ice cream. In 1999, Putin, then Prime Minister, during the Russia-EU Summit in Helsinki clarified that from now on there would be "a strategic westernization driven by pragmatic nationalism”. Which he meant no westernization.
And then came the actual cracks. In 2005 at the event for the 750th anniversary of the foundation of Koenigsberg, neighboring countries were not invited, neither Poland nor the Baltics, a disgrace to the city's common past, given that the former East Prussia, of which it was the capital, At the end of the war it was divided between Russia, Poland and Lithuania.
Then, in 2012, after the war with Georgia (2008) Putin decided to launch the modernization program of the Armed Forces and Kaliningrad became its heart reliving the fate of a new militarization. For military strategy enthusiasts, Kaliningrad is today the hub of that program called Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD), which consists of keeping enemies in check by preventing them from maneuvering, on the northern flank of the Atlantic Alliance.
Aiming directly at the Achilles heel, as they said: conquer 104 kilometers, no more. Because if they are the right ones they are more than enough to break the morale of the enemies.
Kaliningrad in the Russia-Ukraine war
Since last December, when the new tug of war between Russia and NATO, following Washington's confirmation that Ukraine will (someday) be able to join the Alliance, terror has returned to Kaliningrad. As palpable as what broke out in 2017, when neighboring Poland and the Baltic countries strengthened their defense systems. Which – translated – meant more guns leveled against the city.
Poland, for example, after having written in official documents that Russia is its main opponent (not surprising that much in reality), net of the NATO troops stationed (a thousand effective) has strengthened its army with over 50 men, 128 Leopard 2PL tanks and a Patriot missile system.
As for the Baltics, some of them, such as Lithuania, the one closest to Kaliningrad, has even authorized the possession of sophisticated weapons to members of paramilitary groups.
Now that all Western eyes are on the eastern border of Ukraine, perhaps with the gaze of the observers extending a bit towards Belarus, without giving up the Mediterranean, Kaliningrad cannot be kept out of the sights. He is the attacker's spearhead.
