THE Russia summoned the European Union (EU) ambassador to Moscow on Tuesday to discuss what it calls an illegal rail blockade of a Russian outpost on the Baltic Sea, the latest standoff over sanctions imposed by the war in ukraine .
On the battlefield in eastern Ukraine , Russia’s separatist representatives said they were advancing towards Kiev’s main stronghold. A Ukrainian official described a lull in the fighting as the “calm before the storm”.
The latest diplomatic crisis is in the exclave of Kaliningrad, a port and surrounding countryside on the Baltic Sea that is home to nearly a million Russians, connected to the rest of Russia by a rail link through Lithuania, a member of the European Union and the military alliance. Western North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Lithuania has closed the route to basic goods including building materials, metals and coal, which it says it is required to do under EU sanctions that took effect on Saturday.
Russia calls the lockdown measure illegal and has threatened unspecified retaliation against Lithuania.
EU envoy Markus Ederer appeared at the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. EU spokesman Peter Stano said Ederer “explained that Lithuania is implementing EU sanctions and that there is no blockade, and urged them to refrain from escalating steps and rhetoric”.
The stalemate creates a new source of confrontation in the Baltic, a region already primed for a security overhaul that would limit Russia’s maritime power after Sweden and Finland apply to join NATO, putting almost the entire coast under alliance control.
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, arrived in Kaliningrad to hold a council meeting, Russian state news agency RIA reported.
Moscow summoned a Lithuanian diplomat on Monday, but the EU deflected responsibility from Lithuanians, saying the policy was the result of collective action by the bloc. Vilnius “was not doing anything other than implementing the guidelines provided by the (European) Commission,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
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Inside Ukraine, the battle for the east has turned into a brutal war of attrition in recent weeks, with Russia focusing its firepower on a Ukrainian pocket of the Donbass region that Moscow claims on behalf of its separatist proxies.
Moscow has made slow progress since April in a relentless struggle that has cost both sides thousands of dead soldiers in one of the bloodiest ground battles in Europe for generations.
Fighting spans the Siverskyi Donets River which flows through the region, with Russian forces mostly on the east bank and Ukrainian forces mostly on the west, though Ukrainians are still holding out in the east bank city of Severodonetsk.
In recent days, Russia has captured Toshkivka, a small town on the southernmost west bank, giving it a potential foothold to try to isolate Ukraine’s main stronghold at Lysychansk.
Source: CNN Brasil
