Category: Baltics
NEWSWATCH: “The Baltic Elves Taking on Pro-Russian Trolls; What at first looked like as a social media grudge match could be a precursor to invasion, war, and resistance in the Baltics” – TheDailyBeast.com
Mindaugas is an unassuming, thirtysomething advertising agency director by day … ferocious cyber-warrior by night. He started a phenomenon … in Lithuania … countering Kremlin propaganda and disinformation …. ‘We needed to call our group something. … we were fighting trolls. … I said, “Let’s be elves.”‘ There were 20 or 30 at first, when the trolls began … leaving […]
» Read moreTRANSCRIPT: Dmitry Medvedev’s interview with Time magazine
(Government.ru – February 15, 2016) Dmitry Medvedev has given an interview to Time magazine correspondent Simon Shuster following the Munich Security Conference. Question: Thank you very much for agreeing to this interview with Time magazine. I would also like to thank you for your remarks today at the conference. This was a very interesting and eloquent speech. You made a […]
» Read moreNEWSWATCH: “Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics” – RAND
RAND addresses the military dynamic in the Baltics in the event of a hypothetical prospective Russian attack. Russia’s recent aggression against Ukraine has disrupted nearly a generation of relative peace and stability between Moscow and its Western neighbors and raised concerns about its larger intentions. From the perspective of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the threat to the three […]
» Read moreNEWSWATCH: “Russia could overrun Baltics in 3 days. NATO forces would face severe casualties.” – Washington Times
The Washington Times covers a recent RAND report about the military dynamic that could exist in the Baltics in the event of a hypothetical Russian attack. On the same day the Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, announced new resources being sought to strengthen Eastern European defenses from any possible Russian aggression, a report from the RAND corporation was released and […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK: “U.S. Fortifying Europe’s East to Deter Putin” – New York Times
Number of troops in NATO contingent in Baltic republics, Poland, Romania grows 23-fold, number of planes up 8-fold over past year – Shoigu
MOSCOW. Dec 11 (Interfax) – The number of troops deployed in the Baltic republics and Central Europe has grown manifold over the past year, and modernization of U.S. nuclear air bombs is pending. “Over the past year alone, the NATO contingent in the Baltic countries, Poland and Romania has grown eight-fold in terms of planes and 23-fold by the number […]
» Read moreNEWSWATCH Deutsche Welle: “Activists or Kremlin agents – who protects Russian-speakers in the Baltics? Moscow has been financing Russian-language NGOs in the Baltic states for years. Security authorities there are suspicious of the organizations, but the NGOs deny there is any cause for concern.”
Deutsche Welle covers Russian government financing of NGO activity in the Baltics. Authorities have long had these NGOs in their sights. In its annual report, Latvian police stated that the Russia-backed organizations are tasked with the distribution of “biased and distorted information” on domestic procedures in Latvia. According to Estonian and Latvian authorities, the violation of the rights of Russian […]
» Read moreBrussels Break-In Shines Light on Putin’s European Mischief
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Meyer, Jeremy Hodges – August 23, 2015) It was an unusual delivery at the European Parliament by a pair of native Russians. They broke into the third-floor mailroom and deposited for the 751 legislators English-language copies of “Red Dalia,” a scathing biography of Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, according to a parliamentary probe. The book, published […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK Washington Post: Russia’s summer of intrigue: Political trials take center stage.
NEWSWATCH Christian Science Monitor: Living on Prussia’s ruins, Kaliningraders embrace Germanic past
The Christian Science Monitor covers some of the interplay in Kaliningrad between Germanic cultural history and more recent Russian control, amidst Russia’s tensions with the West over Ukraine. … a growing movement of mainly younger Kaliningraders – supported by local government – … are working to roll back the Soviet-imposed amnesia that convinced generations of people who grew up on this ancient territory […]
» Read moreNEWSWATCH Christian Science Monitor: Amid Kremlin-NATO tensions, what mood in Russia’s European ‘spearhead’? The Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad is home to a major naval base that weighs heavily in both Russian and Western military thinking
The Christian Science Monitor reports on Russia’s Baltic enclave Kaliningrad in the midst of stepped-up Russian and NATO military activity. If the tensions between Russia and the West should escalate into full-fledged confrontation, it is this former Prussian town – home to a huge military base in the heart of NATO country – that is going to be right at […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK Wall Street Journal/Edward Lucas: Buttressing the Front Line Against Putin. The U.S. must compel Nordic and Baltic states to put aside old prejudices and link arms against the Russian threat.
Russia is waging a new cold war in the Baltic region, breaching international law and the conventions that govern civilized behavior among nations. The Kremlin provokes and intimidates its neighbors with aggressive espionage, corruption of political elites, propaganda onslaughts, cyberattacks, economic sanctions, coercive energy policies, surprise military exercises, and violations of airspace, territorial waters and even national borders, as […]
» Read moreU.S. Readying Plan to Put Tanks on Putin’s Doorstep
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – David Lerman, Marta Waldoch – June 14, 2015) The U.S. may announce agreements later this month to station tanks and fighting vehicles in eastern European and Baltic countries, a U.S. defense official said. The Pentagon is trying to finalize plans to station equipment for as many as 5,000 soldiers in about a half-dozen countries as the […]
» Read morePutin gives the world his geography lesson: ‘All the former USSR is Russia’
(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – April 28, 2015) The 150-minute film “The President” about Vladimir Putin is mostly boring and predictable in that it insists that “without Vladimir Vladimirovich nothing in the country will work,” Kseniya Kirillova notes. But she points out that there are three “lessons” contained in the film that must not be ignored. First, she argues, […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK The National Interest: Countdown to War: The Coming U.S.-Russia Conflict. Putin and Obama think they’ve got this crisis contained. Two prominent experts say they may be wrong.
The United States and Russia may be unwittingly stumbling down a path to deeper confrontation and even war, cautioned two prominent American national-security experts at a panel in Washington, D.C. Tuesday. Graham Allison, director of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Dimitri K. Simes, president of the Center for the National Interest and publisher of this […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK: i24news.tv: One man’s journey to the heartland of fascism. Hostility to minorities and attempts to rewrite Holocaust history …
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Baltic independence and more than a decade of full membership in the European Union and NATO. If the assumption was that those developments would cure Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian society from the scourges of fascism, racism, and anti-Semitism, the events of the past month clearly show that these plagues have not been eradicated. […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK Fox News: Jews in Baltics fear creep of anti-Semitism
Jews in the Baltics fear a series of disturbing events in the three-nation region of Eastern Europe may be signaling a revival of the Holocaust-era hatred that once nearly wiped out their numbers. Across the countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, Jewish leaders say their communities are feeling increasingly uncomfortable as anti-Semitism once again appears to be on the rise. […]
» Read moreWhere will Putin Strike Next?
(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, March 5, 2015) The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, to suggest that old rules and old expectations no longer apply and thereby increase uncertainty and fear. That explains why someone like Kseniya Sochak has suggested that she is next on Putin’s list now that the Kremlin has killed Boris Nemtsov and […]
» Read moreBusiness New Europe: NATO ramps up presence in Eastern Europe
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – February 6, 2015) Nato has agreed to establish a new rapid reaction force, boost its troops in Poland and Romania, and establish six command and control centres in Central and Southeast Europe as part of the alliance’s response to the Russian aggression in Ukraine. According to Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, […]
» Read moreDespite Swedes’ Sub Panic, Russia’s Baltic Fleet Is Far From Fearsome
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Matthew Bodner – October 22, 2014) As Sweden’s navy goes on its sixth day of hunting a suspected Russian submarine, Swedish defense officials announced on Tuesday that they intend to force the mystery vessel, if found, to surface “with armed force, if necessary,” the English-language Swedish newspaper The Local reported. The announcement that Sweden is […]
» Read moreNazi death squad leader: The musical
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – BALTIC BLOG: Mike Collier in Riga – October 9, 2014) If you are constantly battling to try and disprove Russian claims that your state is essentially neo-Nazi, it doesn’t help if an evening of musical entertainment then pops up giving Nazi death squads the razzle-dazzle of a Broadway musical. That’s exactly what has happened […]
» Read moreIf Putin Isn’t Stopped in Ukraine, He Will Move against Baltic Countries, Piontkovsky Says
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 20, 2014) If the West does not stop Vladimir Putin’s campaign to subordinate Ukraine to Moscow, then the Kremlin leader will move against the Baltic countries even though that carries with it the direct threat of a military conflict with NATO, according to Andrey Piontkovsky. But if Putin and his concept […]
» Read moreLithuania President Warns of Growing ‘Russian Chauvinism’
(Voice of America – voanews.com – James Brooke – July 8, 2014) In Lithuania, July is the season of song festivals but the country’s newly re-elected president, Dalia Grybauskaite, sees little harmony with her massive neighbor to the east: Russia. “Now, we see aggressive rhetoric, aggressive behavior, aggressive propaganda, and informational wars,” she noted. ‘Great Russian chauvinism’ Russia’s annexation of […]
» Read moreInterfax: Moscow worried about intensified NATO activity in north Baltic region
MOSCOW. June 2 (Interfax) – The stepped-up debate on the accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO may have negative implications for the north Baltic region, which has been traditionally calm from the military-political point of view, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday. “Amid the NATO infrastructure build-up in a number of countries bordering on Russia and the stepped-up […]
» Read moreNATO Is Ready for Russia Tactics, Estonia Minister Says
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ott Ummelas – May 7, 2014) NATO is prepared to counter non-conventional warfare used by Russia to annex Crimea, Estonian Defense Minister Sven Mikser said. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 1949 founding treaty “can be effectively used to counter new threats” and doesn’t need to be revised, Mikser said in an interview yesterday in the Estonian […]
» Read moreRIA Novosti: NATO to Boost Military Presence in Baltic, Mediterranean
BRUSSELS, April 16 (RIA Novosti) – NATO will intensify air patrols over Eastern Europe and dispatch extra ships to the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas due to the crisis in Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said after a meeting of alliance ambassadors in Brussels. “We will have more planes in the air, more ships on the water, and more […]
» Read moreWho’s next on Putin’s list?
(opendemocracy.net – Agnia Grigas – March 12, 2014) Crimea is under the control of Russia’s military forces and its Moscow-backed government is voting to secede from Ukraine. Where might President Vladimir Putin seek territorial expansion next? Agnia Grigas served as an advisor in the Lithuanian government. She consults for multinational corporations investing in emerging markets and is the author of […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK: After 20 years, Russia and Estonia sign border treaty
[“After 20 years, Russia and Estonia sign border treaty” – Reuters – February 18, 2014 – reuters.com/article/2014/02/18/us-russia-estonia-idUSBREA1H0QN20140218] Reuters reports on Russia and Estonia signing a treaty formalizing their border, still awaiting ratification by their respective legislatures. The treaty comes amidst long-standing tensions between the two countries. Russia and Estonia signed a treaty setting out the position of their joint border […]
» Read moreThe future’s bright – the future’s Lidl
(opendemocracy.net – Ola Cichowlas – January 7, 2014) Ola Cichowlas is a British-Polish freelance journalist. She covers Russian regional politics and the arts in provincial Russia. As Russia and the EU fight it out for Ukraine, Ola Cichowlas reports on a more positive initiative on another border, where Russians from Kaliningrad can travel to Gdansk in Poland to sample the […]
» Read moreRussia Confirms Tactical Missile Deployment on NATO Borders
MOSCOW, December 16 (RIA Novosti) Russia confirmed Monday that it has deployed tactical ballistic missiles near its borders with NATO but said the move did not violate international agreements. Bild newspaper in Germany reported over the weekend that Russia had “quietly” moved 10 Iskander-M (SS-26 Stone) missile systems into its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad and along its border with […]
» Read moreInterfax: Russia Criticizes Statements on Eastern Threats to NATO
MOSCOW. Nov 15 (Interfax) – The Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed surprise about the statements made by some Polish and Baltic countries leaders saying that the NATO training Steadfast Jazz 2013 indicates the allies’ readiness to defend the Eastern European countries from threats from the East. “Is it really appropriate to speak seriously about any threats of attack against NATO […]
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