Russia summoned its European Union ambassador to Moscow on Tuesday, angered at the latest standoff over war-imposed sanctions in Ukraine, in what it calls an illegal rail blockade of a Russian outpost in the Baltic Sea.
On the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, separatist representatives from Russia said they were advancing towards the main fortress of Kiev. A Ukrainian official described the stagnation in the fighting as “the calm before the storm”.
The latest diplomatic crisis is taking place in Kaliningrad, a port on the Baltic Sea and the surrounding countryside, home to nearly one million Russians and connected to the rest of Russia by rail via European Union member Lithuania. military alliance of the Western North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Lithuania has blocked the road to essential goods such as construction materials, metals and coal, which it says must be made under EU sanctions that came into effect on Saturday.
Russia describes the quarantine measure as illegal and threatens to impose an indefinite retaliation against Lithuania.
EU envoy Markus Ederer appeared at the Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. EU spokesman Peter Stano said that Ederer “announced that Lithuania has implemented EU sanctions and that there is no blockade, and urged them to avoid escalating steps and rhetoric.”
The stalemate is creating a new source of conflict in the Baltic, a region poised for a security overhaul that would limit Russia’s naval power by putting nearly the entire coast under alliance control after Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO.
Russia’s powerful Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev has arrived in Kaliningrad to hold a council meeting, the Russian state news agency RIA reported.
Moscow summoned a Lithuanian diplomat on Monday, but the EU dismissed the responsibility from the Lithuanians, saying the policy was the result of the bloc’s collective action. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that Vilnius “does nothing but implement the guidelines provided by the (European) Commission”.
wars
Inside Ukraine, the war for the east has turned into a brutal war of attrition in recent weeks, with Russia focusing its firepower on the Ukrainian pocket in the Donbas region, which Moscow claims on behalf of its separatist proxies.
Moscow has made slow progress since April in a relentless struggle that has cost both sides thousands of dead soldiers in one of Europe’s bloodiest ground wars in generations.
The conflicts involve the Siverskyi Donets River, which runs through the area, with Russian forces mostly on the east bank and Ukrainian forces mostly on the west.
In recent days, Russia has captured Toshkivka, a small town on its south-west bank, giving it a potential foothold to try to isolate Ukraine’s main stronghold, Lysychansk.
source: Noticias
[author_name]
