‘We Don’t Want Belarus to Become a Larger Kaliningrad,’ Koenigsberg Regionalists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 14 – Representatives of the Baltic Republic Party, a regionalist movement Moscow has banned, joined Belarusian opponents of tighter integration of that country with the Russian Federation at a demonstration in front of the Russian embassy in Warsaw. 

            In the words of Vadim Petrov, a BRP member now in exile who took part in the protest, they did so because “we don’t want Belarus to become a larger version of Kaliningrad,” a Moscow colony without basic rights that Moscow has militarized in order to threaten the countries of Europe (region.expert/kenig-belarus/).

            He said the residents of Koenigsberg which Moscow calls Kaliningrad have a great deal in common with Belarusians. “Together we act against the imperial policy of the Kremlin.” That’s why, he said, the Belarusian activists who organized the anti-imperial protest at the Russian embassy in Warsaw invited the BRP to take part.

            Petrov says he and his party members understand as do the Belarusians that all the talk in Moscow about creating a union state so Vladimir Putin can remain in power after 2024 is nonsense.  He will continue in office. No sensible person is deceived: what Putin is doing is simply an effort to “expand the Kremlin’s empire after the annexation of Crimea.”

            He adds that Belarusians are well aware that Moscow takes all the resources from the regions and leaves them in poverty. That is why ever more Belarusians do not want to be part of any “union state.”  It is also why the people of Koenigsberg don’t want to be part of any such state either.