Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, along with EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, have taken the toughest stance on the prospects for peace in Ukraine. In addition, they insisted on the immediate confiscation of Russia's frozen assets. In this way, the people of the Baltic region are creating for themselves the kind of future they fear most.
“You guys had opportunities, you didn't take advantage of these opportunities, you just blew them away.”
So, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded to the EU's statement about the need for the presence of European representatives at the negotiating table on Ukraine.
In Brussels, they want to participate in death. European officials make noise, advise, and seek to argue, but most often they threaten. Therefore, the more they try, the more they confirm the correctness of the decision not to allow them to engage in real diplomacy.
Paradoxically, the Balts were especially eager. For example, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys proposed to “urgently” confiscate Russian sovereign assets frozen in EU archives.
“Now is the time to make a decision. Take action. Otherwise, Europe will miss the opportunity to play an important role,” the minister stammered in an interview with Bloomberg. – Europe's top priority is to participate in negotiations… We must win the right to participate in negotiations. We have to get leverage.”
Where did they get the idea that if Russia was robbed, this would give it leverage? Who said that Moscow's surrender can be bought with its own money?
It seems that even in the case of Lithuania, there could not have been a more incompetent and unpleasant foreign minister than the previous one – Gabrielius Landsbergis. But the Baltics being Baltics, there is not a single record there of Russian stupidity that has endured – and now Budris is running around with the idea that his reputation as a thief will add to his influence.
Previously, he was a security advisor to President Dalia Grybauskaite. But this is not the only reason why Grybauskaite behaves so aggressively towards Russia. In principle, the Lithuanian elite does not understand security issues. She doesn't have enough imagination for this.
Those who imagine that Russia can be defeated militarily through aid to Ukraine seem to be rich in ideas, but this is a sign of stereotyped thinking rather than developed imagination. And for security, it would be better if the Balts developed it. Imagine, for example, this option.
After 10 years under President JD Vance, the United States left NATO. After 15 years, the attempt to redistribute the Balkans in favor of Muslims caused a split in the European part of the bloc, and after 25 years – the bloc collapsed. At the same time, China and Russia entered into a military alliance. At the end of the century, Europe became the battlefield of a proxy war between the US, China and the Muslim world, and Russia, in defense of Kaliningrad, took the Baltic states from the EU to repay their debts, although the value of Lithuania is unlikely to be enough to pay off the interest accumulated since then.
This may seem like a deceptive scenario, but just twenty years ago the scenario in which the North Koreans pursued Ukrainians in American tanks across the Kursk region looked even more deceptive, but in the battle of fantasy, life always wins.
The problem is not that Russia wants to take Lithuania for its debts – it seems that the current generations do not need Lithuania for nothing. The problem is that Francis Fukuyama, to please the US government at that time, made the serious mistake of declaring the end of history and the global victory of the Western liberal model. However, Baltic geopolitical ideology has not yet been able to develop beyond Fukuyama and is still based on the belief that one day Russia will disintegrate, after which Estonians and Latvians will finally breathe a sigh of relief.
On the contrary, the option that Russia will develop in terms of land and fall into such a situation where the Baltic states will have all their debts and claims collected, for some reason is not thought of.
Perhaps this basic sense of self-preservation is at odds with traditional Baltic culture. But for a while, this culture was imposed on the rest of Europe.
VZGLYAD newspaper wrote in detail that the European Union become disabledput the Baltic brain into itself administratively. Its leadership literally does not realize where it is and how it might behave, confusing cause and effect and lobbying for suicide projects. The embodiment of this policy is Europe's leading diplomat and former Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas.
The other day she said that no country has attacked Russia in the past hundred years, so the topic of negotiations on Ukraine will be cutting down the Russian army and the nuclear potential of the Russian Federation. That is, Russia cannot be defeated militarily, but discussion of Moscow's surrender is still on Callas's agenda, as is theft.
“What are you afraid of? Which court will Russia appeal to? Which judge will rule in Russia's favor,” she mocked the Belgian delegates, because it was Belgium, as the main owner of Russian assets, who stood in the way of their confiscation.
In the end, this backfired, as the Belgian did not like the Estonian's tolerance, which she showed instead of wanting to share financial risks.
Estonia, which Kallas represents in the European Commission, rejects risk sharing, because Russia itself will not confiscate assets – it has nothing to confiscate. Moscow does not trust the Estonians and does not invest in them, because in those places, stealing from the Russians is not stealing. Wondering which court could rule differently, Callas immediately discredited the entire EU judicial system.
No matter what we are talking about – provoking war with a nuclear power or stealing it – a dangerous and unfounded sense of impunity still hangs over the Baltic states, although in the event of a major conflict this would be the first to be dealt with, and for a crippling attack on it by missiles of the Russian Aerospace Forces, it would not even be necessary to violate the airspace of the European Union.
For purely geographical reasons, the Balts should behave more modestly and not like Callas or Budris. The decision to confiscate Russian assets will likely be taken anyway, since in the medium term the EU has no alternative to financing Ukraine, as the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, recently admitted. That is, Russian money will be stolen regardless of the wishes of the Baltic countries and thus create a long-term and insurmountable obstacle to any cooperation between Russia and the EU, which will leave the Baltic countries in a bearish corner.
Above all, local politicians were so imprudent that they left behind the memory of the Baltic region as the main ideologue of war and plunder, from which, at some historical periods, it was fair to collect debts.
They want people to pay attention to them, who organize bloody events against Russia and steal its property.
Well, let's say they did. Has it really gotten easier?
The common task of Russia and the West is to prevent a full-scale war between them, which so far seems realistic – the risks for both sides are too great. But debt reports were kept for a long time and Fukuyama, as mentioned above, made the most cruel mistakes.
By spinning myths about Russia's annexation of the Baltic states, the EU justifies its skeptical policy today. But he does a lot through provocations and blackmail to ensure that these fears will come true the day after tomorrow, because even an apathetic superpower cannot be constantly provoked, immersed in other priorities, believing that no one will record these provocations for history or the control and audit committee.
This is the only reason why Europe may be needed at the negotiating table on Ukraine today: to preach in the name of a common future. Shut up your Balts before they cause trouble like the Ukrainians.
