Friend or Foe?

There was an interesting piece on DW last night - Friends or Foes?  Russia and the Baltic States.  Although the piece was aired recently, much of the footage was from last March.  Trees were all bare, as the reporter interviewed a young Lithuanian woman who was helping Ukrainian refugees to settle in Vilnius.  Since then many Ukrainians have returned home or settled elsewhere.  The two mothers and their children that we sponsored for three months traveled onto Spain and the United States, where they have relatives.

A number of things struck me as askew in this documentary, not least of all the way the three Baltic countries were presented.  Estonia was pictured as the vanguard of high technology, showing the ultra-modern Delta Center at the University at Tartu where Skype was born.  Latvia was viewed as a country still living off its Soviet past in a locomotive repair shop in Daugavpils, and Lithuania seen as a safe haven for Ukrainians fleeing the war Russia instigated in their country.  I suppose it was an attempt to show diversity, but the documentary set a certain character for each country that belies the multifaceted nature of each state. 

All three countries have invested heavily in high tech.  All the Baltic states have very fast internet and you can reach it virtually anywhere.  Not like London, where you are constantly struggling to find a wi-fi signal.  Lithuania has become one of the European leaders in nanotechnology and robotics, launching its first nanosatellite into space aboard a NASA rocket in 2013.  Latvia is one of the leaders in sustainable energy in the EU with green sources making up more than 40 percent of its energy consumption.  Only Finland and Sweden do better.  But, Estonia is usually the first country most foreigners mention when asked if they know the Baltics, thanks to Skype.  My Swedish and Danish friends are quick to point out that their countrymen were the initial investors, but the software was actually written by Estonians at Delta Center.

It's fairly easy to travel through the Baltic States.  The historic "Amber Road" is now a set of freeways that allow you to get from Vilnius to Riga to Tallinn within 8 hours.  Daina and I took this road trip many years ago, stopping off to see Tartu along the way and venturing as far as Narva on the Russian border.  Since then we have gotten up to Riga on multiple occasions but unfortunately not back to Tallinn.  

Each capital is unique with a dominant style of architecture reflecting its cultural apex.  Vilnius is principally a Baroque city.  Daina and I were amused to hear the narrator call it Lithuanian Baroque as most of the architects were Italian.  The Lithuanian-Polish noble families could afford to hire architects and masons from Rome and other Italian cities to build lavish estates and churches throughout Lithuania.  Hence, "Rome of the North."  

Even in the 19th century, when Lithuania fell under Tsarist rule, noble families would hire French landscape architects like Eduoard Andre to lay out their lavish gardens.  Daina and I have worked on a couple of these projects at Užutrakis and Lentvaris, not far outside Vilnius.

Riga reached its apex during the Art Nouveau period and has one of the greatest collections of this style of architecture anywhere in Europe.  It was a Russian port city, the largest of the Baltic capitals, and continues to thrive as the hub of air traffic in the region.  It's Medieval center is quite small.  It was little more than a village at the time Vilnius and Tallinn reached their peaks.

Tallinn is one of the loveliest Medieval cities you will find in Europe.  It has retained much of this character although modern buildings now surround the Old Town on all sides.  Also a port city, the Soviets used Tallinn for the sailing events of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.  You can cross a bridge to Saaremaa, an island where you will find two of the oldest Gothic churches in the Baltics, and a castle at Kuressaare that looks straight out of the first Elizabethan period.

These cities are all lovely in their own right with distinctive histories due to the many occupations over the centuries.  Lithuania was better suited to defend itself against the Teutonic knights, which took over its northern neighbors.  The Battle of Žalgiris is immortalized in Lithuania, with Vytautas heralded as the greatest Duke for having withstood the invasion, although the Teutonic knights did manage to cleave off the Lithuanian coastline.  Old Lithuanian Prussia became German Prussia, which is what most foreigners consider it, given the famous Germans that arose from this country, like Immanuel Kant and Thomas Mann.  You can visit the Thomas Mann house at Nida, which is once again part of Lithuania.

Russia didn't lay claim to these countries until the early 19th century, although to read Russian history you would think they were always part of Russia.  This is what many Russians living in the Baltic states think too.  All three countries have gone out of their way to distance themselves from Russia since independence in 1991, digging through the archives in other countries to uncover vital historic records.  Much of this history had been lost in the Baltic states as Russia, and later the Soviet Union, went out of its way to bury it.

It was amusing to hear three Russian factory workers at Daugavpils lamenting that they could no longer get Russian news.  Not exactly true as Dozhd is now located in Riga, after being closed down by Putin, and continues to broadcast throughout the Baltics.  This is true of other Russian-language news sites like Current Time, based in Prague.  They still air in Russia too, but with state warning labels.  Daina follows these news channels as she feels she gets more out of them than she does DW or BBC.  You can also continue to watch Russian movies and television serials as long as they are not deemed Russian propaganda.  Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians are as fond of these popular programs as are Russians. Still our neighbor Vasily got a satellite dish so that he can watch his Russian programming uncensored.

All three countries have been welcoming Ukrainian refugees since the start of the war.  They have also welcomed Belarusians who were frozen out of their country when Lukashenko clamped down on civil protests following the highly contested election in 2020, which he claimed he won.  Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the opposition leader, currently makes her home in Vilnius.  The population of Vilnius has swollen about 20 percent since 2020 due to expatriate Belarusians and Ukrainians.  

The Baltic countries also contribute heavily to the Ukrainian war effort.  They have supplied roughly one-third of their total military supplies to Ukraine over the past 6 months.  This hasn't gone unnoticed in Kjiv, which recently changed Minsk Avenue to Lithuania Avenue.  The narrator noted that Vilnius had renamed the short street leading to the Russian embassy in Žverynas to Ukrainian Heroes Street back in March.

Still, pro-Russian and pro-Soviet sentiments remain in the Baltics.  The Lithuanian woman in the documentary noted that her father chose to remain in Kjiv waiting for the Russians to liberate the city.  Every year pro-Soviets march to the cemetery to honor the graves of the Soviet war heroes, proudly wearing St. George ribbons, oblivious to the clash in symbolism.  This includes some leading politicians in the city.  They feel the Soviets liberated Lithuania from the Germans during WWII.  The St. George ribbon dates back to Tsarist times.  There really isn't much you can do about this other than contain these sentiments to the fringe of the population.  

However, most Russians in Lithuania are against the war, even if they may hold pro-Russian sentiments.  The Russian theater went out of its way to accommodate Ukrainians by staging Ukrainian productions last Spring.  The Russian Orthodox church opened its doors to Ukrainians as there was only one Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the city.  The priests were adamantly against the war.  Unfortunately, Father Kirill, the Patriarch of Moscow, had these rebellious priests dismissed.

In answer to the question, friend or foe?  It is really hard to say.  Balts consider Putin a foe.  Balts do not consider Russians themselves as foes, unless they support Putin.  For months the Baltic states allowed Russians who felt they could no longer reside in their home country to come into their countries.  Many of them came through Finland, which is closest to the St. Petersburg border.  They also came through Estonia and Latvia, which share long borders.  Lithuania shares a border with Kaliningrad and came under fire when it imposed sanctions on rail goods being transported to the Russian enclave.  Lithuania has been subject to propaganda attacks ever since.  

However, the feeling is that those who chose to remain in Russia after so many months did so out of choice.  As a result, the borders are no longer open to Russian tourists, only those seeking asylum.  This is true throughout Eastern Europe, not just the Baltic states.  Poland is the most recent county to impose restrictions.  UN Secretary General Guterres has called these travel bans unacceptable, hoping that "these situations disappear" after the war.  With no end in sight that could be a very long time.

It is understandable given the current situation.  Russia continues to bombard the Baltics and other European countries with misinformation through its propaganda networks RT News and Sputnik, which are easily available on the Internet and social media.  The Kremlin actively funds opposition parties throughout the EU, including Far Right political parties in France and Italy.  The Kremlin also continues to flood borders with so-called refugees, flown in from detention centers in Greece and Iraq, hoping to make this an issue in European elections.  We saw recently a Far Right coalition win in Sweden!  

This is no longer a Baltic issue or an Eastern European issue.  It is a European issue.  Putin represents the greatest threat to Europe since Hitler.  Smug Americans should also be worried as many of the conservative candidates in the upcoming state and national elections use the same propaganda techniques seen for years in Eastern Europe, and likewise are funded to some degree by Moscow, as we saw with the notorious NRA case in 2016, resulting in the election of Trump.  The busloads of asylum seekers being sent to Washington mirror the tactics used by Putin and Lukashenko prior to the war.

The war has already spread far beyond Ukraine, and has made an impact throughout the globe in rising fuel, grain and transportation costs, spurring inflation worldwide.  We have seen inflation reach 20% in the Baltic states.  It has been mitigated somewhat by the rise in salaries over the last few years, but it is only a matter of time before the strain becomes too much to bear with the heating season soon upon us.  A bellicose Putin promises to make things even worse for Europeans in the coming months.  Fortunately, most European countries have done better than they initially thought in stockpiling energy reserves.

With Putin now calling up what remains of his reservists, the war has reached a crucial stage.  This may further the unrest in Russia, which boiled over this month in seeing Ukrainian forces take back large swathes of territory in the Kharkiv region with Russian forces desperately fleeing, leaving much of their munitions behind.  For the first time since the war began, Putin faces backlash within his own country.  Governors openly criticized him.  Even hardliners are questioning his command of the war. This is the time to throw all our might behind Ukraine and end this war once and for all, not just for the sovereignty of Ukraine but to allow Russians to finally have a voice in their own country.

Russians were never the foe.  There is a shared cultural heritage between the Baltic states and Russia, as there is between Ukraine and Russia, which can never be undone.  The hope is that more Russians will come to understand the horrible nature of Putin and the shame he has brought on their country by conducting this ill-conceived war, which must not end on his terms, otherwise he will continue this terrible bloodshed in other countries.  Balts don't believe that Russians want this blood on their hands.