NATO battalion during an exercise in Lithuania. File photoMOSCOW, June 21Lithuania should take advantage of the situation with the suspension of railway transit to the Kaliningrad region and ask NATO to deploy a division and serious anti-missile defense equipment in the country, said Albinas Janushka, a Lithuanian diplomat and former secretary of the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. June transit of a number of goods subject to EU sanctions. The governor of the region, Anton Alikhanov, said that the ferry complex of the Kaliningrad region will cope with new cargoes due to the restriction of transit through Lithuania. Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, said that Moscow would soon respond to the decision of Vilnius to declare a transport blockade of the Kaliningrad region, and the people of Lithuania would seriously feel the consequences of these measures.
Baltic threat. Will Latvia and Lithuania be able to harm Kaliningrad» It is worth taking advantage of this «crisis of Kaliningrad transit» and proving to NATO that we need not even a brigade, but at least a division, plus very serious air and anti-missile defenses. This is what our politicians (ministries) of defense are about They have been said more than once, and they should be located physically in Lithuania, because … in accordance with the fifth article of NATO, the entire NATO must defend Lithuania, and not just one brigade in Germany … Lithuania, whether it wanted it or not, received arguments, so Let's use them,» Janushka wrote on social media. EU Ambassador to Russia Markus Ederer was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday due to transit restrictions. During the conversation, the Russian side demanded to immediately resume Kaliningrad transit, otherwise retaliatory measures would follow. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier that Lithuania, having made such a decision, was acting aggressively and went beyond unfriendly lines. She added that Vilnius should understand that Moscow's characterization of its transit actions to Kaliningrad as hostile means that now «it's no time for talk.» The Lithuanian Ministry of Defense has repeatedly stated that it is seeking to strengthen NATO's expanded forward presence battalions to the level of brigades. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Germany is ready to strengthen its contingent in Lithuania to a brigade. According to the commander of the Lithuanian army, Lieutenant General Valdemaras Rupshys, the brigade allocated by Germany to Lithuania will not arrive in the country in the near future. What can Lithuania get in return?
