Until 1945, Kaliningrad was the capital of German East Prussia, K?nigsberg. After the war East Prussia was annexed and divided roughly in half between Poland and Russia, with Lithuania also getting a small section. The German population was cleansed and Russian, Polish and Lithuanian settlers populated the land. The Russian part with the capital Kaliningrad was separated from Moscow by Lithuania and Belarus, though all were part of the Soviet Union.
After the Soviet Union's demise, Kaliningrad became an enclave. Up until now Moscow has had an agreement with Lithuania that Russians may pass in and out of the region without a visa, just by showing an internal Soviet passport with a paper identifying Russian citizenship at the border crossing.
Now Lithuania is hoping to become an EU member in 2004 and also to join the European Shengen visa-free zone. In preparation for the transition, in January Russian citizens from the mainland traveling to Kaliningrad by land will need a Lithuanian visa that will be issued according to Shengen rules. In a year, residents of Kaliningrad will also need visas.
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Moscow is demanding that its citizens be allowed to travel through Lithuania visa-free by a special nonstop train, by car or by bus with a 12-hour transit stay limit. But any free corridors through Shengen territory may be used as a window for illegal immigrants to get into Europe, and the EU, under its own rules, cannot and will not allow any such arrangements.
The EU is offering to issue multi-entry one- to five-year Shengen visas to Kaliningrad residents and Russian businessmen connected to the region for a symbolic fee of 5 euros ($4.70). The EU is ready to help in building new consulates in Kaliningrad and in modernizing border crossings.
Kaliningrad Governor Vladimir Yegorov is also ready to seek out compromises. Many residents of Kaliningrad (and also many Poles and Lithuanians) make a living out of cross-border trade (small-scale smuggling). They need the 12-hour transit corridor not to go to Moscow and see the Kremlin, but to trade goods (cigarettes, alcohol, gas) and get back into Kaliningrad.
The same activities may be performed with even better results by having a multi-entry Shengen visa with full access to all of Europe. At a meeting in Moscow before the recent EU-Russia summit, Yegorov asked that the cheap visa offer be put on paper and asked Foreign Ministry officials why they were blocking the building of a new consulate in Sovietsk on the Lithuanian border.
A Foreign Ministry official reacted angrily: "We are withholding permission for the consulate because we want a visa-free corridor, not new consulates." The Foreign Ministry is not doing anything to speed up the issuing of passports to Kaliningrad residents. The public rhetoric of Russian officials and politicians on the Kaliningrad issue has recently become so heated it would seem they are getting ready to send tanks to "liberate" Kaliningrad as soon as the visa regime is introduced.
But no tanks will go -- up to 80 percent of Russian tanks have no batteries in any case. Russia's uncompromising public stand on Kaliningrad can only end in a humiliating retreat.
Apparently, that may be the main objective of the Kaliningrad spat. Many influential vested-interest groups in our country are deeply unhappy with Putin's present pro-Western policies, with the opening up of Russia economically and politically. Since it's impossible today to remove Putin in person, the best strategy may be to expose the Kremlin's newfound Western friends as villains who want to tear Russia apart.
The campaign seems to be at least partially successful. Putin has taken an uncompromising stand on Kaliningrad that will inevitably lead to his public humiliation in the near future. The planned expansion of NATO and a possible U.S. attack on Iraq will add to this. If the humiliation still fails to turn Putin, he himself may be exposed to the Russian public as a Western sellout. The real fight for Russia's future is only just beginning.
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.