MOSCOW: A proposal by the Russian Defense Ministry to redraw Russia’s maritime borders in the Baltic Sea has alarmed Moscow’s neighbors, with officials from Finland to Lithuania condemning what they see as an attempt to create confusion and destabilize regional security.
While the Kremlin asserted on Wednesday that the government draft resolution was not politically driven, experts informed The Moscow Times that the proposed changes could be used to exert pressure on Russia’s western neighbors, all of whom are EU and NATO members.
“This issue illustrates that Russia can and will generate problems and disputes in previously stable situations,” said Arkady Moshes, head of the Russia program at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA). “It’s part of this hybrid pressure,” he added.
The Defense Ministry’s draft resolution, which vanished from the government’s website after being published on Tuesday, suggested changes to Russia’s maritime borders around the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad and the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland to “reflect the modern geographical situation.”
Although the proposal lacked specifics on how the borders would change, it provoked strong reactions from Russia’s Baltic Sea neighbors who would be affected by any territorial adjustments.
“This is a clear escalation against NATO and the EU, and must be met with an appropriately firm response,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis stated on Wednesday.
Finland’s Foreign Ministry echoed this sentiment, describing the draft resolution as a distraction and “a form of hybrid influencing.” Meanwhile, Swedish authorities suggested that Moscow might be aiming to assert control over the Baltic Sea.
“If Russia has clear geographical and technical reasons for the proposal, it will become a technical issue, and the border might be adjusted,” analyst Moshes explained to The Moscow Times. “But these technical arguments will need to be presented, and the process will then be managed according to international rules,” he concluded.
