Lithuania: Conflict in Ukraine makes Security Precautions Critical
Lithuania is the largest and most populous of the three Baltic nations, bordered by Latvia, Belarus, Poland, and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, also sharing maritime borders with Sweden. Having spent fifty years under Soviet occupation, it was the first country to declare independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. Since then, after a smooth political transformation, Lithuania has become a multi-party parliamentary democracy with a competitive and outward-oriented economy. Just like the other two Baltic states, it joined the EU and NATO in 2004, experiencing rapid economic development. Lithuania’s foreign policy course is pro-Western, with 88 percent of Lithuanians supporting its EU and NATO membership. Lithuania is known to have a poor relationship with Russia, recently been named as one of the countries unfriendly to Russia by Russia's Channel 1.
However, in relation to its Russian minority, Lithuania is in a slightly different position than the other two Baltic States. While Estonia and Latvia have large ethnic Russian minorities, with about 25 percent and 24 percent respectively, Lithuania’s Russian population is much smaller, equaling about 5 percent of the population. This can be explained by two separate factors. After regaining their independence, Latvia and Estonia restored the pre-1940 citizenship laws on the basis of the legal continuity of their statehood from 1940 – 1991. This meant that people gaining citizenship were those who held it before the Soviet occupation, and their descendants. In contrast, those who entered the territories after the occupation and their descendants received the right to gain citizenship through the naturalisation procedure and were not granted citizenship automatically. In contrast, after regaining its independence, Lithuania granted citizenship to all its residents who were willing to have it.
The reason behind this approach can be explained by Lithuania’s history under Soviet occupation. Just like the other two Baltic States, Lithuania experienced Russification and forced Russian immigration. However, this process did not assume an equally massive scale. Scholars discuss two potential factors behind this. First, both Latvia and Estonia already had well-developed industry and manufacturing sectors, which was very important for the Soviet Union and its economic recovery. This was associated with huge labour inputs, with many Russians immigrating to Latvia and Estonia to take up jobs. In contrast, Lithuania was much more reliant on its agricultural sector.
Second, out of the three Baltic States, Lithuania expressed the most resistance to Soviet rule. Interestingly, the 1972 unrest, unusual for an occupied Soviet country, was so serious that it required the intervention of the Soviet military to restore order, leading to hundreds of arrests. The protest is known as a call for freedom, with a 19-year-old Lithuanian student Romas Kalanta setting himself on fire in protest of the Soviet occupation. Thus, it was clear that the Soviet Union has failed to suppress Lithuania’s long tradition of nationalism.
Thus, given these obstacles, Lithuania has received considerably less pressure from Russia regarding its treatment of the Russian minority. However, the political opinions of its Russian minority have caused concern, especially in relation to Ukraine. In the European Values Study conducted in Lithuania, 54 percent of respondents whose first language was Russian agreed with the statement that Russia's policies are an adequate response to US and NATO actions directed against it. In addition, 48 percent said they thought Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, lawfully belonged to Russia. This contrasts the official position of the Lithuanian state, with Lithuanian MPs unanimously calling Russia's war in Ukraine a 'genocide', labelling Russia ‘a terrorist state’.
Thus, there remains some concern over Russia taking advantage of its ethnic minorities. To tackle this and fight Russian propaganda, Lithuania has banned six Russian-language TV channels and public events supporting Russia's invasion in Ukraine.
In addition, Lithuania has announced upcoming changes in its education system, stating that it is planning to revise all Russian-language textbooks amid Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. However, while Estonia and Latvia have made changes to allow state and municipal schools to only use the state language, Lithuania has not set such a goal. Instead, it attempts to improve the knowledge of the Lithuanian language among its Russian minority. One of the efforts to achieve the goal was the decision to devote five hours per week to Lithuanian language education in national minority schools.
Nonetheless, while its approach regarding Russian minorities differs from the other Baltic States, its security concerns remain real. Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda declared a state of emergency, arguing that Russia’s actions ‘threaten Lithuania’s primary security interests.’ Additionally, Lithuania has encouraged NATO members to speed up the delivery of military equipment and financial resources to Ukraine. Indeed, the country itself has provided Ukraine with considerable support, including military support of 200 million euros, 200 000 euros for the International Committee of the Red Cross humanitarian assistance activities in Ukraine, and 2 million euros in humanitarian aid for Ukrainians who have fled from the war zones to the western part of the country. In total, Lithuania has thus far given over 500 million euros worth of assistance, including the hosting of war refugees.
Given this position, new tensions between Lithuania and Russia are to be expected. An example of this was Lithuania imposing a ground transit ban on EU-sanctioned Russian goods through its territory, effectively cutting off the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast. With the sixth round of EU sanctions on Russia coming into effect on June 17, Lithuania stated that sanctioned Russian goods to Kaliningrad would be blocked from transit through Lithuania. The decision went against an agreement signed in April 2003 between the EU and Russia which allowed people and goods from Kaliningrad to gain a transit document for train travel through Lithuania to Russia. However, Lithuania’s decision was backed by the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borell, who argued that Lituania was correctly following EU sanctions. Russia reacted harshly, threatening serious consequences.
One must consider Kaliningrad’s geographical location to understand its importance. Kaliningrad Oblast is a semi-exclave situated on the Baltic Sea, between Poland to the South and Lithuania to the East and North, sharing no land border with Russia. It is a territory belonging to Russia, separated from Moscow by about 680 miles. Kaliningrad Oblast gets a lot of its supplies via rail through Lithuania and Belarus, with a sea route connecting its port to the port of St. Petersburg through international waters. It also serves as Russia's only port on the Baltic Sea that remains ice-free year-round. Russia also has nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad locating them within close striking range of major European capitals.
Thus, the conflict between Lithuania and Russia over the transit of Russian goods created fears of widening the war. In particular, there was a worry that Moscow could use military force to create a land corridor from Belarus to Kaliningrad Oblast by capturing the stretch of land along the Polish-Lithuanian border known as the Suwalki Gap, which would cut the land connection between the Baltic States and the rest of NATO. While Lithuania removed the ground-transit blockage in July, the situation highlighted a wider security issue regarding the Suwalki Gap land strip. It is located on the Polish and Lithuanian borderland that lies between Kaliningrad in the west and Belarus to the east. If a conflict with Russia occurs, the gap could cut off Lithuania and Latvia, which are located north of the gap, from Poland and the rest of the EU located south of it. Taking the Suwałki Gap could connect the Russian military in Kaliningrad with those stationed in pro-Russian Belarus. Such a move would cause an immediate confrontation between Russia and NATO’s nuclear-armed members. Therefore, the Suwalki gap is seen as one of NATO’s greatest vulnerabilities.
Lithuanians see the Suwalki Gap as an obvious strategic target for the Russians, fearing an attack on the Baltics under a pretext to protect their Russian minorities which would repeat a scenario similar to Ukraine. To increase its security, Lithuania has raised its national defence funding to 2.52 percent of GDP from the current 2.05 percent. There is also a rising fear among the general population, with gun sales in Lithuania soaring. The situation is summarised by Laurynas Kasciunas, Chairman of the National Security and Defence Committee in the Lithuanian Parliament, who has stated that ‘Ukrainians are fighting for us and for Europe, too’.