Zakharova threatens Lithuania because of the transit ban/Collage of Channel 24 strong _ngcontent-sc88=””>The Kremlin is very outraged that Lithuania has restricted the transit of Russian goods through its territory. This time, the odious representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, took up the threats.
Zakharova said that Russia's response to Lithuania's actions would not be diplomatic. Like, the aggressor state will correspond to Vilnius in the “practical” plane. Exactly what this means is unknown.
According to a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, the government is already considering response options.
What is known about the transit restriction
On March 15, the European Union approved 4 packages of sanctions against Russia for the attack on Ukraine. The restrictions included a ban on the import and transit of Russian steel and other ferrous metal products to and through the EU. These rules came into force only on June 17.
Lithuania is a member of the EU, so it must refuse the transit of prohibited goods. On June 18, the Kaliningrad authorities announced that Lithuania does not allow transit trains with goods coming from Belarus to pass through its territory. For 3 months, Russian officials did not say anything about these restrictions, although they knew about them only when the sanctions came into effect, the Kremlin “lit up”.
The Russian authorities began to talk about the “blockade” of the Kaliningrad region. The speaker of President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, said that Lithuania “untied their hands” and began to threaten the Baltic countries with “retaliatory measures.”
At the same time, Andrey Klimov, head of the Federation Council Commission for the Protection of Sovereignty, went even further. He decided to use the favorite method of the aggressor state – to scare the European Union with the “second army of the world”.
Already on June 20, the Russians announced that they were starting military exercises in the Kaliningrad region. Soldiers of Putin's army will fire from Grad and Uragan multiple launch rocket systems, as well as large-caliber Giacint guns and other artillery weapons near the border with the Baltic countries.
We add that Estonia reported that a Russian helicopter crossed their airspace for several minutes. This happened for the first time since the beginning of a full-scale war in Ukraine. In addition, the Estonian government said that Russia is conducting exercises with imitation missile strikes on their territory. Therefore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already called the Russian ambassador “on the carpet.”
