Kaliningrad, a new area of ​​tension between Russians and Westerners

Things are heating up between Westerners and Russians in Kaliningrad. This small enclave is located between Lithuania and Poland. About a million people live there, half of whom are in the city of Kaliningrad itself. How to explain the presence of this Russian enclave so far from the rest of the territory? The journalist Guillaume Papin explains that we have to go back to the end of the Second World War. “At the time, the town was called Konigsberg and […] is part of East Prussia, which is German“, he specifies.

But the Red Army advances against Nazi power, brings down the city and renames it Kaliningrad. Integrated into the USSR, it remained Russian after the fall of the regime. The Baltic countries for their part obtained their independence and joined the European Union in 2004. Kaliningrad therefore finds itself landlocked. If agreements with Europe exist to supply Kaliningrad from Russia, they have been called into question since the war in Ukraine and Lithuania is blocking the passage. A situation that worries Moscow.