tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/kaliningrad-55835/articlesKaliningrad – The Conversation2022-06-23T17:00:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1857562022-06-23T17:00:44Z2022-06-23T17:00:44ZUkraine Recap: why a small Russian ‘exclave’ is suddenly so important<p>Well before Vladimir Putin sent his war machine over the border into Ukraine, the Russian president and his proxies were fulminating about Nato surrounding his country, establishing hostile military bases in its backyard and boxing it into a corner. </p>
<p>Ukraine’s ever-closer relationship with the west and the prospect of it joining Nato was one of Russia’s great fears, along with resentment that Nato had attracted countries that were once firmly within the old Soviet sphere of influence. So the decision this week by Lithuania, one of the Baltic states, to enforce sanctions on certain goods moving between Russia and Kaliningrad, a small Russian “exclave” wedged between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Coast, has raised the temperature a notch.</p>
<p>As you’d expect, Russia’s rhetoric has been typically robust, threatening “appropriate measures” that would have a “serious negative impact on the population of Lithuania”. Moscow calls it a “blockade” – which has a specific meaning under the Geneva Convention, being prohibited if it is directly about starving a population. But, as Stephen Hall – who researches the post-Soviet space at the University of Bath – <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-all-eyes-on-lithuania-as-sanctions-close-russian-land-access-to-kaliningrad-185720">points out</a>, this is no blockade. Non-sanctioned goods (including food and vital supplies) can still pass freely from Russia to Kaliningrad through Lithuania as can people. But reality has not played a huge part in Russia’s statements about the war to date.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-all-eyes-on-lithuania-as-sanctions-close-russian-land-access-to-kaliningrad-185720">Ukraine war: all eyes on Lithuania as sanctions close Russian land access to Kaliningrad</a>
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<p>As it happens, Kaliningrad is where Russia’s Baltic fleet has its base. And one of the things that analysts are picking up on is the increasing focus on the maritime aspects of the conflict. By blocking Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea, Russia is exacerbating a global food shortage which is pushing up prices and threatening widespread hungers, particularly in Africa. But Basil Germond, an expert in sea power and maritime security at the University of Lancaster, reports that there is increasing evidence that Ukraine’s naval operations are causing problems for Russia’s navy as well as its civilian shipping operations. In a long war, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-as-the-conflict-at-sea-intensifies-russias-prospects-of-victory-look-further-off-than-ever-185640">writes Germond</a>, sea power generally gives those countries wielding it an important advantage, and in this confrontation, Russia, a continental power, faces pressure from a range of seafaring nations, which will eventually contribute to Moscow’s strategic failure.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-as-the-conflict-at-sea-intensifies-russias-prospects-of-victory-look-further-off-than-ever-185640">Ukraine war: as the conflict at sea intensifies, Russia's prospects of victory look further off than ever</a>
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<img alt="Ukraine Recap weekly email newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/449743/original/file-20220303-4351-1xhaozt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>This is our weekly recap of expert analysis of the Ukraine conflict.</em></strong>
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<h2>The ground war</h2>
<p>Back on dry land, the war of attrition in the Donbas region continues to be a struggle for every yard of territory. One aspect of this slow, bloody battle that is becoming clearer are the problems faced by Russia’s ground forces when it comes to crossing the various rivers in the region, particularly where – as is common – Ukrainian defenders have destroyed all the bridges.</p>
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<p>As military strategist Christopher Morris from the University of Portsmouth writes, river crossings were a centrepiece of Soviet military tactics, featuring heavily in Red Army plans for pushing into Europe. Many of Russia’s armoured vehicles and tanks – amphibious by design – benefit from this legacy, and they have access to bridging equipment that should be fit for purpose. But like we have read so many times during Russia’s ill-conceived “special military operation”, poor planning, fiercer than expected Ukrainaian resistance and failure to control the air have meant that the Russian military is <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-russias-military-campaign-hindered-by-the-rivers-in-donbas-185305">making a poor fist of river crossings</a>, which is inflicting considerable harm on its campaign in the region.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-russias-military-campaign-hindered-by-the-rivers-in-donbas-185305">Ukraine war: Russia's military campaign hindered by the rivers in Donbas</a>
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<p>To the north meanwhile, there has been speculation that Russian ally Belarus might come to Putin’s aid – and certainly there has been a buildup of troops on the Belarus/Ukraine border, while Russia and Belarus have conducted joint exercises in the past. The University of Birminham’s Stefan Wolff and Anastasiya Bayok from the University of Hamburg, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-fears-that-belarus-might-invade-on-russias-side-are-growing-185416">thinks it unlikely</a> that Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko – who has faced enormous unrest since the contested election which returned him to power in 2020 – will want to commit troops to war in Ukraine while he feels such insecurity at home.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-fears-that-belarus-might-invade-on-russias-side-are-growing-185416">Ukraine war: fears that Belarus might invade on Russia's side are growing</a>
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<h2>The bigger picture</h2>
<p>An unexpected byproduct of this conflict is the impact it is having on global insurance markets. Western insurers are already facing serious losses from sanctions passed in March prohibiting provision of various types of cover to activities related to Russia, not least in the maritime sector. Losses in the sector are anticipated to be in the billions of pounds, depending on how long the war drags on. Premiums are increasing across the board, accordingly. </p>
<p>But our team of finance and banking experts from the University of Nottingham notes that Russian insurers are <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-ukraine-war-is-benefiting-russian-insurers-and-pushing-up-insurance-premiums-everywhere-184965">stepping into the gap</a> left by western companies, a little like the way the same problem has been handled by Iran under stringent western sanctions. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-ukraine-war-is-benefiting-russian-insurers-and-pushing-up-insurance-premiums-everywhere-184965">How the Ukraine war is benefiting Russian insurers – and pushing up insurance premiums everywhere</a>
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<p>Finally, historians are already trying to make sense of what this conflict means in the longer-term continuum of world events. Lancaster University historian Paul Maddrell <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-putins-policy-towards-ukraine-has-strong-parallels-to-stalins-post-wwii-plan-for-germany-184911">sees parallels</a> between how Putin is now waging this war, trying to hive off areas of territory that can be absorbed either into Russia itself or as puppet “republics” under Moscow’s control, with the way Joseph Stalin dismembered Germany after the second world war, which is how Russia ended up controlling Kaliningrad in the first place. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-putins-policy-towards-ukraine-has-strong-parallels-to-stalins-post-wwii-plan-for-germany-184911">Why Putin's policy towards Ukraine has strong parallels to Stalin's post WWII plan for Germany</a>
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A digest of the week’s coverage of the war against Ukraine.Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1857202022-06-23T13:41:36Z2022-06-23T13:41:36ZUkraine war: all eyes on Lithuania as sanctions close Russian land access to Kaliningrad<p>Tensions between Russia and Nato, already stretched considerably by the invasion of Ukraine, have ratcheted up even further over Kaliningrad, a small piece of Russian territory sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic coast and cut off from mainland Russia.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/kaliningrad-russias-unsinkable-aircraft-carrier-deep-in-nato-territory-182541">Kaliningrad</a> is a Russian <em>oblast</em> (region), of just under half a million people on the Baltic sea. It sits between Lithuania to its north and east and Poland to its south and is about 1,300km from Moscow. It was claimed by the Soviet Union from Germany after the second world war and has been controlled by Moscow ever since.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/kaliningrad-russias-unsinkable-aircraft-carrier-deep-in-nato-territory-182541">Kaliningrad: Russia's 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' deep in Nato territory</a>
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<p>When the sixth round of EU sanctions on Russia came into effect on June 17, Lithuania announced that sanctioned Russian goods to Kaliningrad would be banned from transit through Lithuania. The <a href="https://sanctionsnews.bakermckenzie.com/eu-adopts-sixth-package-of-sanctions-against-russia-belarus/">sanctions affect</a> oil and refined oil products, and any technology that could be used for military purposes. Other products <a href="https://intellinews.com/russia-demands-end-to-kaliningrad-transit-restrictions-248155/">on the list</a> were cement, construction materials and metal goods. </p>
<p>The decision jeopardises an agreement signed in April 2003 between the EU and Russia which allowed people and goods from Kaliningrad to obtain a <a href="https://euobserver.com/world/10991">transit document</a> for train travel across Lithuania to Russia. The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/europe-s-east/news/eu-says-lithuania-acted-by-the-book-in-kaliningrad-standoff-with-russia/">Josep Borell</a>, backed the decision, saying that Lithuania was correctly implementing EU sanctions.</p>
<p>Moscow reacted immediately and strongly, threatening “<a href="https://www.dw.com/en/russia-threatens-lithuania-over-kaliningrad-blockade/av-62214326">serious consequences</a>”, which, as yet, have not been specified.</p>
<p>On June 20, Lithuania’s chargé d’affaires was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and told to cancel the restrictions or face the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/50631fd9-d5c6-4c97-890d-902ab36a57f1">consequences</a>. A senator on Russia’s upper house – the <a href="http://www.council.gov.ru/en/">Federation Council</a> – Andrey Klimov, called on the EU to “<a href="https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/06/20/more-than-serious">correct Vilnius’s impudent little stunt</a>”, while the head of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, stated that “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/21/kaliningrad-russia-threatens-serious-consequences-as-lithuania-blocks-rail-goods">appropriate measures</a>” that would have a “serious negative impact on the population of Lithuania”.</p>
<p>The heightened tensions between Vilnius and Moscow follow hot on the heels of a discussion in Russia’s State Duma on June 8 – the lower house of parliament – about revoking the Soviet Union’s <a href="https://euobserver.com/world/155227">recognition</a> of Lithuania’s independence. By making a stand over transiting goods to Kaliningrad, Lithuania is also highlighting its sovereignty.</p>
<h2>Threat in the Baltic</h2>
<p>The deteriorating relationship between Russia and the west after the former’s invasion of the Donbas in 2014 saw Russia deploy short-range Iskander missiles in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37600426">Kaliningrad in 2016</a> that could reach the Baltic State capitals and two-thirds of Poland. In April 2022, the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet air force ran simulated bombing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-stages-war-games-kaliningrad-enclave-ifax-says-2022-04-09/">campaigns</a>in Kaliningrad. With more than 1,000 personnel – and at a time of heightened conflict over Ukraine – this was a big concern for Vilnius.</p>
<p>On June 22, the Russian military <a href="https://twitter.com/IuliiaMendel/status/1539509466672021504">simulated missile attacks</a> on Estonia with the Baltic Sea Fleet heavily <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-21/nato-s-estonia-says-it-s-targeted-by-russian-missile-simulations">involved</a> and helicopters violating Estonian <a href="https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1539359995984330753">airspace</a>. Understandably, the Lithuanian authorities fear being <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/world/lithuania-kaliningrad-cut-off-ukraine-war-nato-territory-1516337">cut off</a>. </p>
<p>The Suwałki gap is a stretch of land 100 kilometres long stretching along the Lithuanian and Polish border dividing Belarus from <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/suwalki-gap-russia-war-nato-lithuania-poland-border/">Kaliningrad</a>. The Suwałki gap has long been Nato’s weak point as Russia could quickly isolate the Baltic States. Although still <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/03/nato-must-prepare-to-defend-its-weakest-point-the-suwalki-corridor/">an unlikely prospect</a> this would be Nato’s weakest point. So Russian military drills in Kaliningrad are viewed with alarm in Vilnius.</p>
<p>And, while Lithuania has the smallest Russian minority in the Baltic States, Moscow’s propaganda makes much of the <a href="https://www.marshallcenter.org/sites/default/files/files/2020-09/pC_V9N2_en_Burdulli.pdf">ethnic Russian population</a> in a similar way to its insistence that Crimea and the Donbas region are intimately tied through cultural and linguistic links to the Russian “motherland”.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470530/original/file-20220623-51933-q6rxsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map showing Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470530/original/file-20220623-51933-q6rxsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470530/original/file-20220623-51933-q6rxsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470530/original/file-20220623-51933-q6rxsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470530/original/file-20220623-51933-q6rxsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470530/original/file-20220623-51933-q6rxsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470530/original/file-20220623-51933-q6rxsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470530/original/file-20220623-51933-q6rxsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Why Kaliningrad matters.</span>
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<p>So the ban on the transit of certain goods to Kaliningrad represents an important stand by Lithuania against Russia. While the original ban was on the transit of sanctioned goods by train, Vilnius extended the ban to <a href="https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/80485/">goods moved by lorry</a> on June 21.</p>
<p>There is little Russia can do as it is <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-where-is-kaliningrad-russias-exclave-in-europe-and-how-will-lithuanian-sanctions-affect-western-relations-12637787">unlikely to attack</a> a Nato member. Russian flights were <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60539303">banned from EU airspace</a> three days after invading Ukraine and shipping companies quickly stopped <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-shipping-deliveries-suspended-ukraine/31730936.html">working in Russian ports</a>. Russia will be left looking for available domestic shipping, which could take months.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-as-the-conflict-at-sea-intensifies-russias-prospects-of-victory-look-further-off-than-ever-185640">Ukraine war: as the conflict at sea intensifies, Russia's prospects of victory look further off than ever</a>
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<p>For Lithuania, it is a calculated risk. Since mid-2021 Lithuania no longer directly relies on Russia for energy, having connected to the European <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-lithuania-nato-kaliningrad-rail-link-threat/">power grid</a>. Therefore, it is a targeted action by Lithuania that leaves Russia with little scope for action.</p>
<h2>Vilnius versus Moscow</h2>
<p>Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Lithuania has sent more than €115 million (£99 million) in <a href="https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1702318/lithuania-among-top-15-of-ukraine-s-military-donors-mp">military aid</a> By comparison, Italy has sent <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/27278/military-aid-to-ukraine-by-country/">€152 million</a> in military aid, and its GDP is higher at <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=IT">US$1.89 trillion (£1.54 trillion)</a> in 2020. If you combine its humanitarian and military support to Ukraine, Lithuania has sent <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/27331/countries-committing-the-most-of-their-gdp-to-ukraine-aid/">0.2%</a> of its GDP. This is 0.02% less than the US. In 2020, Lithuania’s GDP stood at <a href="https://tradingeconomics.com/lithuania/gdp">US$56 billion</a>. By contrast, America’s GDP in 2021 was <a href="https://www.bea.gov/news/2022/gross-domestic-product-fourth-quarter-and-year-2021-advance-estimate">US$23 trillion</a>.</p>
<p>Well before the Russian invasion – in July 2021 – Lithuania called for Ukraine to be <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/poland-lithuania-ukraine-signed-declaration-on-support-for-ukraine-joining-nato-and-the-eu.html">given Nato membership</a>. It has repeated this call since the conflict started in February. Lithuania was also among the first EU states to request that Brussels provide <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lithuania-calls-eu-provide-cash-ukrainian-refugees-2022-05-23/">funding for Ukrainian refugees</a>. Lithuania has been a principal advocate for Ukraine becoming an EU member and campaigned for Brussels to <a href="https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1630115/lithuania-joins-eu-countries-to-voice-support-for-ukraine-membership">begin talks</a> to facilitate that move.</p>
<p>The Russian government has called Lithuania’s actions a “blockade”. But <a href="https://twitter.com/LithuanianGovt/status/1539244822237782020">people and unsanctioned goods</a> can still transit across Lithuania and people from Kaliningrad can still enter Poland and Lithuania <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/justice-home-affairs/news/eu-borders-open-to-kaliningrad-citizens/">without a visa</a>.</p>
<p>Reflecting Russia’s often surreal worldview, the authorities claim that it is <a href="https://twitter.com/anneapplebaum/status/1539562061642010624">illegal by international law to blockade Kaliningrad</a>. But if it’s really a blockade, it’s a poor one – and Moscow knows all about blockades, having cut off Ukrainian ports, causing the current <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d144a7d4-eba1-4377-9179-88d247688b1e">global food crisis</a>. Lithuania has yet again shown that it is prepared to <a href="https://twitter.com/mrsorokaa/status/1539283153231257602">stand up to autocrats</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185720/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A small piece of Russian territory on the Baltic coast has become the focus of heightened tensions on Nato’s fringe.Stephen Hall, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Politics, International Relations and Russia, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1825412022-05-05T16:30:46Z2022-05-05T16:30:46ZKaliningrad: Russia’s ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ deep in Nato territory<p>The Russian Baltic Fleet has announced that it carried out a series of <a href="https://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12419904">simulated missile strikes</a> of its nuclear-capable Iskander system. This is not the first time that the Russian exclave – roughly the size of Northern Ireland and wedged between Nato and EU members Poland and Lithuania – has made the headlines as part of Russia’s sabre-rattling.</p>
<p>The Iskander missile system was first introduced to the region <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37597075">in 2016</a> and then upgraded <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-nato-missiles/russia-deploys-iskander-nuclear-capable-missiles-to-kaliningrad-ria-idUSKBN1FP21Y">in 2018</a>, as part of a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37600426">Russian strategy</a> to counter Nato’s deployment of an anti-ballistic missile defence shield in Europe. There have also been regular military exercises involving Russia’s Baltic fleet, which is headquartered in Kaliningrad, including <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russia%E2%80%99s-zapad-2021-exercise">Zapad-21</a> in the autumn of 2021 and a series of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-stages-war-games-kaliningrad-enclave-ifax-says-2022-04-09/">war games</a> since the invasion of Ukraine.</p>
<p>Kaliningrad is one of currently 46 <a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-is-an-oblast.html"><em>oblasts</em></a> (administrative regions) of Russia, but the only one that does not have a land border with another part of the country. The roots of the territory reach far back in history and are closely connected to the fate of East Prussia and its capital of Koenigsberg. Founded by the Teutonic Knights in 1255, it is often associated with German militarism. But it’s equally famous for the philosophers Immanuel Kant, who lived his entire live in Koenigsberg, and Hannah Arendt, who spent part of her childhood there. </p>
<p>Like most territories in this part of Europe, wars – and the peace settlements that ended them – shaped their ethnic composition and political boundaries. East Prussia became detached from Germany after the first world war, with the creation of the “free city” of Danzig and the establishment of the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20720529#:%7E:text=called%20Polish%20Corridor%2C%20was%20one,to%20the%20Second%20World%20War.">Polish corridor</a>. It remained part of Germany, however, until the end of the second world war, when it was conquered by the Soviet Red Army in early 1945. Its partition between Poland and the Soviet Union was agreed at the Yalta conference and formalised at the final formal meeting of the big three (Russia, the US and Britain) at Postdam in 1945. </p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.nato.int/ebookshop/video/declassified/doc_files/Potsdam%20Agreement.pdf">city of Koenigsberg and the area adjacent to it</a>” (approximately one-third of East Prussia at the time) fell to Stalin. The Russian leader renamed it in 1946 in honour of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mikhail-Ivanovich-Kalinin">Mikhail Kalinin</a>, who had been chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet – the head of state of the Soviet Union – at the time of his death in 1946.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461614/original/file-20220505-22-tz9glm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Locator map of Kaliningrad Oblast." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461614/original/file-20220505-22-tz9glm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461614/original/file-20220505-22-tz9glm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461614/original/file-20220505-22-tz9glm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461614/original/file-20220505-22-tz9glm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461614/original/file-20220505-22-tz9glm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461614/original/file-20220505-22-tz9glm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461614/original/file-20220505-22-tz9glm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=475&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kaliningrad has no land border with Russia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Hermes Furian via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once a highly inter-mixed area with a population of Germans, Poles, Lithunanians and Jews, it was ethnically cleansed of most of its German population by Stalin. This was followed by a systematic campaign of <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/building-soviet-city-the-transformation-konigsberg">russification</a> which sought to erase all traces of German heritage.</p>
<h2>Post cold war</h2>
<p>The region recovered from its Soviet legacy after the fall of communism, benefiting from the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18284828">special economic status</a> it was granted by the Russian government in 1996 and from <a href="https://www.iss.europa.eu/content/future-kaliningrad">improving links</a> with the EU in the years afterwards. </p>
<p>In recent years, Kaliningrad has also seen its economic value grow as one of the nodes in the <a href="https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2020/12/29/russias-kaliningrad-emerges-as-a-major-china-europe-multi-modal-sea-port/">multimodal trade networks</a> connecting Xi'an in central China through Central Asia and Russia to the European market <a href="https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/2021/09-15/9565804.shtml">along the</a> New Eurasian Land Bridge corridor of the Belt and Road Initiative. At the same time, this has made the region <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-invasion-kaliningrad-economy-sanctions/31732543.html">more vulnerable</a> in the context of the war in Ukraine and western sanctions imposed on Russia.</p>
<p>For Russia, however, Kaliningrad’s main significance is military as an “<a href="https://www.eurasiareview.com/15042022-kaliningrad-once-again-russias-unsinkable-aircraft-carrier-on-the-baltic-oped/">unsinkable aircraft carrier</a>”. As a military base, the region adds significantly to Russia’s strategic depth and is a critical asset for Moscow in its anti-access area denial (A2AD) capabilities in the Baltic Sea, potentially undermining Nato’s freedom of manoeuvre across the <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/world/lithuania-kaliningrad-cut-off-ukraine-war-nato-territory-1516337">Baltic states</a> and parts of Poland. </p>
<p>Moreover, if there was a further escalation of the war – potentially involving Russian moves against Estonia and Latvia with their relatively large ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking communities – Kaliningrad would be an important launchpad for Russian operations. So Russian military exercises in Kaliningrad are a signal of Russian capabilities and a way of exerting more pressure on the west – just as the EU was agreeing its <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/speech_22_2785">sixth package of sanctions</a>.</p>
<p>In light of Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, this signal should not only be read as one of defensive intent on Moscow’s part but also as a potential sign of things to come: the next missile launch from Kaliningrad may not be a simulation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182541/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stefan Wolff receives funding from the United States Institute of Peace. He is a past recipient of grants from the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU's Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Senior Research Fellow of the Foreign Policy Centre in London and Co-Coordinator of the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions.</span></em></p>Russia’s test of ‘nuclear-capable’ missiles in Kaliningrad is intended to send a message to Nato.Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1819862022-05-05T14:27:59Z2022-05-05T14:27:59ZUkraine war: Russian tests and Putin’s threats recall the nuclear fears of the cold war<p>Russia is reported to have held drills this week simulating “<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-just-did-a-dry-run-of-nuclear-capable-missile-strikes">nuclear-capable strikes</a>”. According to a <a href="https://function.mil.ru/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12419904@egNews">statement by Russia’s ministry of defence</a>, forces of the Baltic Fleet in the Kaliningrad region, conducted training sessions to “deliver mock missile strikes with the crews of the Iskander operational-tactical missile systems”. The Iskander has a range of about 300km, so missiles launched from the Kaliningrad region could strike targets in western Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic States and even parts of Germany. </p>
<p>The latest drills follow the unveiling, on April 29, of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-tests-new-intercontinental-ballistic-missile-2022-04-20/">Russia’s new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)</a>. The missile can deliver their payloads onto targets in the US up to 18,000km away. </p>
<p>Vladimir Putin said Sarmat “has no analogues in the world and will not have for a long time to come” and would be “food for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country”.</p>
<h2>Mutually assured destruction</h2>
<p>I am a researcher at RAF Fylingdales a <a href="http://www.wslfweb.org/docs/roadmap/irm/internet/surwarn/cat/html/bmws.htm">ballistic missile early warning (BMEWS)</a> station on the North York Moors. I have spent the past three years building the <a href="https://fylingdalesarchive.org.uk/blog/">Fylingdales Archive</a>, which charts the station’s 60-year history of watching the skies for signs of nuclear attack by ICBMs. BMEWS was built in response to the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/oct4/ussr-launches-sputnik/">launch of Sputnik</a> in October 1957. Sputnik was the world’s first artificial satellite, launched from the top of the world’s first ICBM, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-7_Semyorka">R-7</a>. The satellite demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to <a href="https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/space-race/online/sec200/sec250.htm">place a nuclear weapon on a rocket</a> and strike anywhere on Earth with little warning.</p>
<p>Early in 1958, in response to Sputnik, the US Congress signed into existence measures that form the foundations of modern strategic nuclear deterrence. In addition to BMEWS, Congress also approved the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-65_Atlas">Atlas</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM-68_Titan">Titan</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman">Minuteman</a> ICBM programmes. These technologies formed the basis of what became known as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z9jpn39/revision/2">mutually assured destruction</a> (Mad), meaning both sides of a potential nuclear conflict have enough firepower to destroy each other and the rest of the world.</p>
<h2>Mistakes and miscalculations</h2>
<p>Deterrence strategies such as Mad depend on a delicate game of psychological poker, the risk being that your opponent’s reaction might be far beyond what was anticipated. </p>
<p>The dangers of this did not take long to materialise. In the early 1960s, the US had its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGM-19_Jupiter">Jupiter</a> intermediate-range ballistic missiles stationed in Turkey and Italy, which Moscow felt could destroy Russia before it had a chance to retaliate. To level up their deterrent posture, Moscow started to deploy intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="CIA map of Cuba from the 1962 missile crisis." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461566/original/file-20220505-22-x6glb5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flashpoint: CIA map showing the Soviet military presence in Cuba at the time of the 1962 missile crisis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Karolis Kavolelis via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What ensued went into the history books as the <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/cuban-missile-crisis">Cuban missile crisis</a> – a standoff between the US and Soviet Union, with, between them, 29,700 warheads (the US had 26,400 to the Soviet Union’s 3,300). Each of these weapons on average was <a href="https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/effects/wenw/note1.html">tens of times more powerful</a> than the weapons used against Hiroshima. Happily, sanity prevailed and none were fired.</p>
<p>Following this crisis, measures were put in place to ease nuclear tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. These included establishing a hotline between Washington DC and Moscow and limiting the number of operational ICBMs. But this period of relative detente proved to be short-lived.</p>
<h2>The war scare and arms control</h2>
<p>The early 1980s marked a period of renewed mistrust between the nuclear superpowers and a growth in the size of nuclear arsenals. By 1986, there were 70,000 nuclear warheads shared almost equally between the US and Soviet Russia. How close the two sides came to confrontation was illustrated by the “<a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/aa83/2021-02-17/able-archer-war-scare-potentially-disastrous">war scare</a>” of November 1983. Soviet nuclear forces <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-1983-military-drill-that-nearly-sparked-nuclear-war-with-the-soviets-180979980/">misinterpreted a Nato exercise called Able Archer 83</a> for the start of a nuclear attack. Soviet nuclear forces in Europe were put on five-minute standby to launch a preemptive nuclear strike.</p>
<p>Once again, constructive dialogues began between Washington and Moscow were renewed, culminating in the historic <a href="https://adst.org/2016/09/the-cold-war-truly-over-1986-reykjavik-summit/">Reykjavik summit</a> between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, widely seen as the beginning of the end of the cold war. </p>
<p>The summit began decades of disarmament, beginning with the signing of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 1987. The INF eliminated intermediate-range ballistic missiles from US and Soviet arsenals. It also paved the way for the <a href="https://nuke.fas.org/control/start1/chron.htm">Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (Start)</a>, which effectively put a cap on nuclear proliferation, at least between the world’s two big nuclear superpowers.</p>
<p>But the end of the Soviet Union brought an uncertain time for arms control processes as central command structures fragmented. The breakup of the Soviet Union also dangerously increased the number of countries with nuclear weapons. In 1991 <a href="https://www.nti.org/countries/lithuania/">Lithuania</a>, <a href="https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/belarus-overview/">Belarus</a> and <a href="https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/ukraine-overview/">Ukraine</a> were left in possession of over 2,000 former Soviet warheads. Following the signing of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-is-the-budapest-memorandum-and-why-has-russias-invasion-torn-it-up-178184">Budapest Memorandum</a> in January 1994 these weapons were returned to Russia and became subject to disarmament process set out by Start.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-war-what-is-the-budapest-memorandum-and-why-has-russias-invasion-torn-it-up-178184">Ukraine war: what is the Budapest Memorandum and why has Russia's invasion torn it up?</a>
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<p>These arms reduction regimes were so successful that by 2012, 80% of the US and Russian nuclear peak stockpiles <a href="https://www.sipri.org/yearbook/2013/06">had been eliminated</a>.</p>
<h2>Eve of destruction?</h2>
<p>But world leaders appear to have developed a renewed appetite for <a href="https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/uk-nuclear-weapons-in-a-third-nuclear-age/">nuclear weapons</a>. In 2019, countries such as China (US$10 billion – or £8 billion) and India (US$2.3 billion) <a href="https://www.icanw.org/report_73_billion_nuclear_weapons_spending_2020">have made significant invesments</a> in their strategic nuclear forces. Meanwhile, the UK announced in 2021 that it will increase its stockpile <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/15/cap-on-trident-nuclear-warhead-stockpile-to-rise-by-more-than-40">from 180 warheads to 240</a>.</p>
<p>Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the historic INF Treaty in September 2019, blaming Russia for deploying cruise missiles that breached the INF agreement, was also a bitter blow for disarmament campaigners.</p>
<p>Putin has used the threat of nuclear war several times in recent years. His movement of the Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad in 2018 was a direct threat to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/08/russia-confirms-deployment-of-nuclear-capable-missiles-to-kaliningrad">Baltic states such as Poland and Lithuania</a>, both members of Nato. And now Russia is demonstrating that, if it wants, they are there to be used.</p>
<p>In the absence of arms control, nuclear weapons maintain their dangerous symbolic allure for leaders such as Putin. But the stark truth is that nuclear weapons have always put the world in catastrophic danger.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Mulvihill receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council for 'Turning Fylingdales Inside Out: making practice visible at the UK's ballistic missile early warning and space monitoring station' AH/S013067/1</span></em></p>Russia is raising the stakes with upgraded ballistic missiles and blood-curdling threats from the KremlinMichael Mulvihill, Interdisciplinary Research Associate, School of Geography, Politics and Sociolog, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/987782018-06-27T12:51:12Z2018-06-27T12:51:12ZKaliningrad: the unique World Cup city that has twice tried to erase its past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224926/original/file-20180626-112634-rw7bkq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C192%2C3864%2C2194&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Unfinished and abandoned: the 'House of Soviets'.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vladimir Mulder / shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kaliningrad and its new US$300m “Arena Baltika” stadium has been thrown into the spotlight by the football World Cup. But will the city’s latest project finally succeed in eclipsing its pre-war German history?</p>
<p>Nestled between Lithuania to the north and east, Poland to the south, and the Baltic Sea to the west, Kaliningrad is today an “exclave” of Russia. But the region was once at the centre of European history and culture. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224965/original/file-20180626-112601-yn9ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224965/original/file-20180626-112601-yn9ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224965/original/file-20180626-112601-yn9ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224965/original/file-20180626-112601-yn9ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224965/original/file-20180626-112601-yn9ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224965/original/file-20180626-112601-yn9ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1315&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224965/original/file-20180626-112601-yn9ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1315&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224965/original/file-20180626-112601-yn9ste.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1315&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kant barely left Königsberg in his whole life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kant_foto.jpg">becker</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Founded by the Teutonic knights in 1255, Königsberg or “King’s Mountain” – as Kaliningrad was once known – first developed as a Hanseatic commercial centre, and was made rich through trade in people, goods, and ideas. Expanding as a Baltic port city, it became the capital of East Prussia, and remained the coronation city of the Prussian monarchy even after the capital was moved to Berlin. </p>
<p>A city of high culture, Königsberg became a capital for museums, theatre, art, and music. It was a hub in the German-speaking world for artists, musicians, philosophers and scholars of all kinds – famously serving as the lifelong home of the philosopher Immanuel Kant. </p>
<p>Although separated from Germany proper by the Treaty of Versailles, and undoubtedly tarnished by Nazi rule, prior to World War II Königsberg had existed as a vibrant and significant centre of modernist culture at Germany’s easternmost frontier. Yet the outbreak of war in September 1939 was to have profound consequences for the region.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224903/original/file-20180626-112604-iotcnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224903/original/file-20180626-112604-iotcnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224903/original/file-20180626-112604-iotcnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224903/original/file-20180626-112604-iotcnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224903/original/file-20180626-112604-iotcnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224903/original/file-20180626-112604-iotcnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224903/original/file-20180626-112604-iotcnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224903/original/file-20180626-112604-iotcnv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Between Poland and Lithuania – and hundreds of miles from the rest of Russia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Naruedom Yaempongsa / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Annexed by the Soviet Union in the wake of World War II, the region underwent one of the most radical erasures of history ever experienced. Due to its status as the USSR’s new westernmost frontier, the region took on a particular symbolic significance. From the outset, a clean break with the past was deemed essential for the Soviet project, and both city and region were renamed Kaliningrad, after Bolshevik revolutionary Mikhail Kalinin. </p>
<p>The indigenous German population was expelled, and the territory was almost entirely repopulated with citizens from elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Kaliningrad was envisaged as functioning like a Soviet version of turn-of-the-century New York City – creating Soviet citizens from a melting pot of peoples of different backgrounds in the same way that Americans had emerged from a diverse New York.</p>
<p>Central to this reorientation towards the east was to replace the remaining German architecture – already heavily damaged by RAF bomber raids during the war – with gleaming examples of Soviet Modernism. Most symbolically, following direct orders from Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1967, the remains of the former Königsberg Castle that had once adorned the highest point in the landscape were levelled and replaced by a new building, the House of Soviets (Dom Sovetov). Overtly futuristic in design, it was to provide the physical manifestation of the societal transformation brought about by communism – a beacon of Soviet power at its westernmost frontier.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224905/original/file-20180626-112601-ol1w0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224905/original/file-20180626-112601-ol1w0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224905/original/file-20180626-112601-ol1w0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224905/original/file-20180626-112601-ol1w0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224905/original/file-20180626-112601-ol1w0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224905/original/file-20180626-112601-ol1w0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224905/original/file-20180626-112601-ol1w0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224905/original/file-20180626-112601-ol1w0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Soviet-era ‘world clock’ sculpture stands in front of the huge Dom Sovetov.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jamie Freeman</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet the House of Soviets was never finished. Today, it stands empty, as it has done for more than 30 years. Referred to by locals as “The Monster”, it continues to occupy the central part of the city, standing as an uncomfortable monument to a history trying to be forgotten. </p>
<p>In the official 2018 World Cup <a href="http://welcome2018.com/en/cities/kaliningrad/luchsheevgorode/">tourist guide</a>, for example, the only reference to this founding pillar of Soviet Kaliningrad is as a point from which to direct visitors to the city to a plaque located on the rear wall of the castle ruins, on which is written one of Kant’s most famous quotes: “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within.”</p>
<h2>Soviet history purged</h2>
<p>In fact, visitors to the city will find little mention at all of the Soviet history upon which Russian Kaliningrad is built. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, far greater focus has instead been devoted to pointing towards the region’s former German heritage, such as the 19th-century Koenig Gate, or Kant Island and its restored Königsberg Cathedral, which dates back to 1333 but was a ruin as recently as the 1990s. Even the “fishing village” gets a mention – a Disneyland-like “German” complex said to represent what the future centre of Kaliningrad will look like following its eventual reconstruction. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224912/original/file-20180626-112604-1cbl2ap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224912/original/file-20180626-112604-1cbl2ap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224912/original/file-20180626-112604-1cbl2ap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224912/original/file-20180626-112604-1cbl2ap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224912/original/file-20180626-112604-1cbl2ap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224912/original/file-20180626-112604-1cbl2ap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224912/original/file-20180626-112604-1cbl2ap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224912/original/file-20180626-112604-1cbl2ap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘fishing village’ and Soviet-era tower blocks: old Kaliningrad meets fake Königsberg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jamie Freeman</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other words, the focus has been on the history not just of, literally, a foreign country, but that of a city that had ceased to exist prior to the arrival of Kaliningrad’s current inhabitants – and the very same history that the Soviets spent nearly half a century trying to erase.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225141/original/file-20180627-112623-1xlhgwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225141/original/file-20180627-112623-1xlhgwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225141/original/file-20180627-112623-1xlhgwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225141/original/file-20180627-112623-1xlhgwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225141/original/file-20180627-112623-1xlhgwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225141/original/file-20180627-112623-1xlhgwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225141/original/file-20180627-112623-1xlhgwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/225141/original/file-20180627-112623-1xlhgwd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kaliningrad Stadium, also called the Arena Baltika, opened in April 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Olga Popova / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the extravagance of the new 35,000 capacity Arena Baltika – in a city where the local team, FC Baltika, typically attracts just 4,000 fans – is an attempt to once again use bold architectural statements as a means of shifting the region’s focus back towards the east. </p>
<p>Yet it is also a reminder to the West of Vladimir Putin’s exclave in the very heart of Europe; home to the Russian Baltic Fleet base and, most recently, a permanent holder of the “Iskander-M” mobile <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-nato-missiles/russia-deploys-iskander-nuclear-capable-missiles-to-kaliningrad-ria-idUSKBN1FP21Y">short-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile</a>. As one of the most militarised regions of Russia, there is undoubtedly more at play here than just football.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>More evidence-based articles related to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/world-cup-2018-11490?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=WorldCup2018">World Cup</a>:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/world-cup-var-technology-is-transforming-the-beautiful-game-97907?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=WorldCup2018">VAR: technology is transforming the beautiful game</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/when-sunderland-afc-gave-spain-a-lesson-in-football-it-sparked-national-introspection-97949?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=WorldCup2018">When Sunderland AFC gave Spain a lesson in football it sparked national introspection</a></em></p></li>
<li><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/footballs-cultural-side-helped-britain-wage-the-last-cold-war-96681?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=WorldCup2018">Football’s cultural side helped Britain wage the last cold war</a></em></p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Freeman receives funding from The Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>The Russian ‘exclave’ ignored its Soviet past, remembered its German roots, but now looks east again.Jamie Freeman, Post-Graduate Researcher and Associate Tutor in Modern History, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.