I was running along the river yesterday and the pathway was still flooded under the Žverynas bridge. The Neris River has been running high the past two weeks, which seems a bit odd since we haven't had any rain. Meteorologists say the unusual flooding is due to a severe storm that passed through Belarus a couple weeks ago but that doesn't really explain why the river is still so high. I told Daina about it and she wondered if Lukashenko was releasing a dam somewhere upstream as the Neris emanates from the Northeastern marshlands of Belarus. Sure enough, there is a large reservoir upstream. Could the wily Belarusian president be playing games with us?
Six days ago, Belarus' top security officer claimed his vaunted air force shot down Lithuanian drones, which he says Lithuania and Poland are producing for a coordinated attack on their country. He didn't produce any evidence but it was enough just to say it to have Lukashenko foaming at the mouth and vowing retaliation. It is true Lithuania and Poland are producing drones for the war in Ukraine, but as you can see these are pretty small drones carrying rather minimal explosives. Certainly not enough to challenge the former Soviet Republic of Belarus.
Lithuania also deploys surveillance drones along the Belarusian border to monitor the illegal immigrants that try to cross over daily. This migrant crisis stems from 2021 and has seen a flood of illegal crossings over the last three years. These illegal immigrants are predominantly Central Asian and were funneled across Belarus to the Lithuanian, Latvian and Polish borders by Belarusian security forces with the guards literally prodding the migrants to cross over. All this was caught on surveillance footage but of course Lukashenko denies it.
Mostly he is upset that Lithuania harbors leading Belarusian opposition figures like Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who remind the world press of the oppression in their home country, not to mention the countless Belarusians now living in Lithuania since the EU imposed sanctions on Minsk. As you might recall, Lukashenko literally had a Ryanair plane brought down just so he could arrest Roman Protasevich, a dissident journalist, and his girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, who Roman threw under the bus to save his own skin. She now faces six years in prison for nothing more than being guilty by association.
At the time, everyone was scratching their heads as to why the Ryanair pilot would honor such a request when he was only minutes from crossing over into Lithuania. The nearest airport was Vilnius, not Minsk. I guess seeing a MiG-29 fighter jet off your wing would create a sense of panic.
For the most part, Belarus is a paper tiger. That's why Putin has been busy deploying his own forces in Belarus, mostly along the northern border of Ukraine, and apparently now has tactical nuclear weapons located in the country. While the two appear to be bosom buddies, often playing hockey together and enjoying a little R&R on the boat of one of Putin's oligarch buddies, the relationship is quite strained.
At one time Lukashenko actively courted the West. He tried to present Belarus as a thoroughly modern country anxious to do business. There are a lot of opportunities available in the country. Timber is cheap. Belarus produces an inordinate amount of fertilizer that Western European countries badly need. Principally, it served as a portal to Russia. Sadly, all that changed with the uprising in Belarus after the 2020 presidential election, as Lukashenko found nowhere to turn except to Moscow. Putin was there waiting for him with open arms.
Of course Lukashenko had to give up almost all his sovereignty, reduced to being what can only be described as a figurehead autocrat at this point. Nevertheless he poses a threat, as he has to show his boss that he is up to any challenge, whether it is shooting down Lithuanian drones or playing with water levels on the Neris River. Russia had also graciously supplied him with a new nuclear power station, located virtually on the Belarus-Lithuanian border.
Lithuanian leaders have been trying to figure out the purpose of this nuclear reactor as Belarus doesn't lack for energy sources. The origin of this reactor dates back to late Soviet times, when Moscow was trying to put all its farflung republics on its nuclear grid. They had built one in Ignalina, in Northern Lithuania, which the country has since decommissioned as part of its agreement to join the EU. These "Chernobyl-type" reactors were seen as potential disasters, even if Lithuania had upgraded its reactor over the years. Yet, Russia still produces nuclear reactors along the same lines and there was great concern that not enough safety precautions were being met. The government was issuing free iodine tablets, which it encouraged citizens to have on their person at all times as it would buy you some time in case of a nuclear meltdown. Mine ended up turning to powder in my wallet.
However, the opening of the Astravats reactor in 2021 begged to ask a bigger question. Was Russia planning on including Lithuania as part of its net? It could have built this reactor anywhere in Belarus, as it pretty much had to start from scratch. Yet, purposely chose to finish a project it began 40 years ago as if recalling the Soviet days.
Lithuania stands in the way of Kaliningrad, a former Soviet exclave that Russia should have given up long ago when Germany was unified. The former Konigsberg was part of the old Prussian state, and was put under Soviet control following WWII. The USSR parked their nuclear fleet in Kaliningrad and it has remained there since. Any land access to this old Soviet outpost is through Lithuania. Trains go through Vilnius daily, forced to stop for a few minutes to change tracks, with no one getting out or going in. Russia would dearly like to establish a more permanent connection to its military base, much like what it has done in annexing a "land bridge" across Ukraine to Crimea, where it has another naval fleet.
We are constantly being reminded of these connections. Even the Neris River forms an old connection, albeit to a much earlier time and place when the Grand Duchy stretched throughout much of Belarus and Ukraine. The river now finds itself divided and to some degree controlled by hostile parties. We have no real way of knowing what is going on upstream but seeing such a high water table at this time of year is disconcerting.
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