Paul
Goble
Staunton, September 13 – Officials
in Moscow who “constantly fear mythical Kaliningrad separatism” are as a result
“closing their eyes to all the remaining difficulties” there, many the result of sanctions
and counter-sanctions “as a result of which the loyalty of the local population
to the center is falling,” according to Gleb Kuznetsov.
The political scientist made that
argument at a meeting of Moscow, Warsaw and Kaliningrad experts organized this
week by the Rosbalt news agency to discuss what participants said is a
situation in which Russia’s “Kaliningrad oblast has turned out to be the main
hostage of the conflict situation” (rosbalt.ru/kaliningrad/2014/09/12/1314609.html).
The exclave, the only Russian region
which is “practically completely surrounded by countries which have joined the
European Union and NATO, is more connected economically and in terms of
transportation with those countries than with the rest of Russia and so is most
negatively affected by the sanctions regime, participants said.
Ilya
Shumanov, who is a leader of the Kaliningrad Regional Anti-Corruption Experts
Community, said that his oblast “has turned out to be not prepared for the
introduction of sanctions,” including both a falloff in visitors from Poland
and increases in domestic prices for many basic goods.
He
pointed out that in Kaliningrad since the introduction of sanctions and
counter-sanctions, the price of fish has gone up 2.5 times and that many local
factories processing Norwegian fish are now “at the brink of bankruptcy.” And
he pointed to increasing “scandals” at the border involving the confiscation of
food purchased by Kaliningraders in Poland.
Almost
all of the problems Kaliningraders are facing arise from Moscow’s
counter-sanctions rather than from the EU sanctions in the first place. “In
Kaliningrad,” the experts said, “no one seriously is focusing attention on the introduction
of new sanctions” from the West. Instead, they are concerned about what Moscow
is doing.
Kaliningraders
are interested in buying food in Poland where prices are significantly
lower. “’Polish apples’” which are sold
in Kaliningrad now as “’Rostov’ apples” cost “almost five times more than in
Poland. And tomatoes and pickles are almost twice as expensive as in the
neighboring country. Alcohol is also much more expensive in the exclave than in
Poland.
The
experts at the meeting said that along with these price changes has come a
change in attitudes among Poles about Kaliningrad. Until recently, most Poles saw expansion of
trade with that region as a good thing. Now, they view it as “a
military-strategic object” Moscow may use to pressure them.
“Russians
often say that Kaliningrad is a ‘besieged fortress,” but given the events in
Ukraine, “Poles as well as Lithuanians and other Baltic republics feel
themselves as in that situation,” something that Moscow’s military exercises in
the Baltic have only exacerbated, reviving many of the stereotypes of the cold
war.
There
is not going to be a war in the region because both Russia and NATO have
nuclear weapons, the experts said, but “the psychological playing on the threat
of war has led to a situation in which scenarios which not long ago seemed
unrealistic, as a result of their constant mention, are beginning to seem
completely probable.”
“Despite
the general worsening of the situation in [Kaliningrad],” the experts
concluded, “no sharp changes are expected there in the immediate future.
Instead, all the same problems which have long characterized Kaliningrad oblast
will simply become more serious,” especially if officials there and in Moscow
continue to ignore them.
Regional
officials have a particular responsibility to address them, the participants
said, but little can be expected if as now they “prefer to report that
sanctions will help ‘local entrepreneurs.’”
That, of course, is what Moscow wants to hear given Vladimir Putin’s
statements, but it is simply not true.
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