I got a text message from our former Croatian neighbor out of the blue. At first I thought it might have been some kind of spam and didn't respond as I couldn't imagine she and her children were still in Vilnius after her husband died unexpectedly 3 years ago. But, she wrote again and so I responded. She said she had stayed to see her oldest daughter through the graphic design program at the art academy, and that she was inviting Daina and me to Croatian National Day on June 1. I appreciated the gesture and sent her an email to send us a formal invitation.
We were all set to go yesterday when Daina asked me to check Croatia's position on Ukraine. I did and found out that President Milanovic has been put on the Ukrainian blacklist for his pro-Russian outbursts. This put him at odds with his own government but still Daina wanted nothing to do with Croatian National Day. If Andrea wanted to invite us to her place, fine, but no way was Daina going to a formal event.
The whole thing seemed kind of odd. We hadn't heard a word from Andrea in all these years, so we asked ourselves why now? I thought maybe the embassy needed an architect for a renovation project but Daina thought the embassy was having a hard time getting guests to come given their president's outspoken positions on the war in Ukraine.
I politely wrote Andrea that we couldn't make it as we had other pressing matters. This was partially true as a colleague was celebrating his birthday and we had to pick up our daughter at the airport. She wrote back too bad.
However, it got me thinking about the conversations I had with her husband Kreshimir. He did seem to have a very pro-Russian attitude toward Eastern Europe, which I found odd given that the Kremlin wasn't very friendly toward Croatia during the civil war. Russia backed the Yugoslavian position that Croatia's and Slovenia's secession was illegal, resulting in a bloody four-year war for independence, in which Russia sided with Serbia. Yet, there he was telling me that Crimea was more a territorial part of Russia than it was Ukraine in between what seemed to be an inordinate number of attempts to clear his throat.
The war in Ukraine is splitting Eastern European countries along lines I never would have imagined. To me, it makes no sense that anyone in Croatia would support Russia, especially a "left-leaning liberal" president, who I would think would support Ukraine. Yet, here he is not only calling the war "mad" but saying that "Crimea will never be part of Ukraine." He was also openly opposed to the admission of Finland and Sweden into NATO as well as the training of Ukrainian troops in Croatia as part of an EU-aid package to the embattled country.
Pro-Russian sentiments run through Lithuania as well. The country's second city Kaunas recently re-elected a mayor who has no qualms doing business in Russia, skirting around the sanctions to sell his fish products. Yet, he has done much over his two terms to make Kaunas competitive with Vilnius so that voters were willing to look the other way, giving him an overwhelming majority on the first ballot. He's not the only Lithuanian businessman/politician to show his sympathies toward Russia. Labour Party leader and current EU parliamentarian, Viktoras Uspaskich, has duel citizenship and is often voicing his opposition to Russian sanctions and military aid to Ukraine. He made his money canning pickles and other vegetables and fruits in Kėdainai, and even hid out in Russia when under threat of campaign violations until the ugly matter blew over a few years ago.
Part of the problem is that Eastern European countries were so deeply integrated into the Soviet system that it has taken three decades to extricate themselves from the old systems. Only this year did Lithuania finally disconnect itself from the electrical grid that binds Belarus, Russia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, or BRELL for short, a process that Estonia and Latvia say they are not technically capable of doing until 2025. There have been any number of unexpected power outages over the years and even more during the war. Russia has long used energy as a form of extortion. The Kremlin even linked the new nuclear reactor in Belarus, close to the Lithuanian border, to the BRELL grid, which Lithuania considered a form of energy colonialism. Putin knew how Lithuania was struggling to meet its energy needs in the wake of closing down its own nuclear reactor in keeping with EU compliance, "offering" the new plant as a form of "cheap energy."
The bigger problem however is that many businesses trade heavily with Russia and haven't been able to find alternative markets in Europe. This is true of our Fish and Pickle Kings. However, it can be done. My brother-in-law once relied heavily on Russia to buy his custom-made windows but was eventually able to find alternative markets in Ireland and the UK after he chose to no longer do business with Russia in the wake of the 2014 Crimean annexation. I guess it comes down to where your allegiances lay.
This inability to sever ties with Russia is prolonging the agony in Ukraine. It is clear that Putin's only interest in Europe is to undermine its common resolve. To a certain degree he has succeeded in doing so by driving wedges in countries like Hungary, Greece and Croatia. This is a product of having influenced elections throughout Europe, most recently in Turkey, where the Kremlin helped tip the scales in favor of Erdogan in the closely watched presidential election.
Sadly, this is a method very similar to the one employed by Bush twenty years ago in breaking down the EU after it refused to support him in the Iraq War. His administration worked out all sorts of bilateral agreements with Eastern European countries, the so-called "New Europe." in exchange for NATO support. This resulted in a number of CIA "black sites" throughout Eastern Europe, including Lithuania. It is also why many European leaders are wary of NATO despite the security blanket it provides. Macron recently stated that Russia revived a "brain dead" NATO with his invasion. Hard to say whether he meant that positively or negatively?
The EU is not a monolithic block. For that matter neither are the countries that are part of it, which is why it is always a painful process to get anything done in the EU parliament. It is surprising that they have been as unified as they are on Russian sanctions and military aid to Ukraine, although the latter has lagged significantly until recently. It seems most leaders in the EU have finally woken up to the fact that there is nothing positive to be gained in relations with Russia and the sooner they cut ties with Moscow the better. Even the Italian PM Meloni, a proud nationalist and conservative, has become a vocal "Russian Hawk" despite support from well-known Putin sympathizers in her coalition government. No one saw that coming.
Still I wonder how Putin is able to effectively play both ends of the political spectrum in Europe? His propaganda efforts seem to reach both the far left and far right in Europe with such strange bedfellows as Gerhard Schroder, the former German PM, and Viktor Orban, the current Hungarian PM. It seems some still see Russia as the heir to Soviet socialism and others as a model nationalist autocratic regime. That's a pretty clever trick to pull off! Mostly, I think the Kremlin has a lot of dirt on European and American political leaders thanks to all the cyber hacking they have done over the last twenty years so that they are effectively able to blackmail these important political figures, turning them into useful idiots. This especially appears to be true of the Croatian President, who is repeating the Kremlin propaganda verbatim, much to the chagrin of his own people.
It is best not to associate with such figures, which is why we chose not to skip the Croatian National Day celebration. I imagine the event was well represented as Croatia is still part of the EU and NATO fold, even if its president speaks out of turn. After all, I had to endure that with Trump for four years.
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