Vladimir Putin, who waged a bloody war against Ukraine in February, will head to the Russian exclave for the start of the school year.
“In the second half of the week, the president will be in Kaliningrad, especially on the occasion of Knowledge Day, but not only,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, referring to the start of the school year.
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The visit is also scheduled just before the Kaliningrad gubernatorial election. Anton Alikhanov will defend the position.
The Kremlin did not specify how Putin would travel to Kaliningrad. Further details of the planned visit are not yet known.
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The Kaliningrad region, home to nearly a million people, is sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania. In recent months, it has become the crux of the dispute between Vilnius and Moscow. This is also why there has been speculation about Putin’s possible trip to the region in the early summer.
In June, the Lithuanians began to impose EU sanctions on the import of goods from Russia into the Kaliningrad region by train, which, of course, crosses the territory of Lithuania. The ban only concerns certain goods, such as steel or building materials.
What about Russian transit?
Moscow threatened retaliation. In the end, this did not happen, because according to the European Commission’s interpretation, the sanctions did not apply to rail transport. The anti-Russian sanctions are meant to restrict Russia’s international trade, but not domestic transit, which is effectively the movement of goods between the main part of Russia and the Kaliningrad exclave.
However, confusion continued throughout August over Russian payments for the Lithuanian transit. The Lithuanian bank has announced that it will stop accepting payments in rubles. iaulių bankas, the last Lithuanian banking house to conduct transactions in rubles in Lithuania, will stop it from September 1.
Exceptions should be made for transactions carried out for humanitarian purposes or to ensure the functioning of the state. The second reason could also be the supply of the Kaliningrad region.
The individual cases will be examined by the Lithuanian Financial Administration, and the Lithuanian Ministry of Transport has not ruled out any previous complications. “If a company operating in Russia, whose owner is on the sanctions list, wants to pay for transit, no global bank will make such a payment,” Lithuania’s Minister of Law quoted Minister Marius Skuodis as saying. LRT.
Propaganda symbol, says a Polish politician
Polish media covered the news about Putin’s visit to the Kaliningrad region. Daily Rzeczpospolita asked representatives of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comments.
“We have certain information, we cannot publish all the data that comes to us, this also applies to intelligence data,” Paweł Jabłoński said without elaborating. He added that in the Kaliningrad region “weapons and weapons intended to intimidate NATO and EU countries are being gathered.” Therefore, he considers Putin’s visit a symbol and a certain element of propaganda.
In the Kaliningrad region, Russia has the Iskander ballistic missile, which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, as well as the S-400 anti-missile system. The Russian Baltic Fleet is anchored in the port of Baltijsk.
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