LONDON, June 21 (Reuters) – Russia’s Security Council secretary warned Lithuania on Tuesday that Russia could retaliate after the European Union member country introduced restrictions on certain goods transiting to enclave of Kaliningrad.
Following Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Lithuania banned the transit of European Union-approved goods through its territory to and from Kaliningrad, citing EU sanctions .
Nikolai Patrushev, a former KGB agent and current Russian Security Council secretary, said Lithuania’s “hostile” actions showed Russia could not trust the West.
“Russia will certainly respond to such hostile actions,” he said, quoted by the RIA news agency.
“Adequate measures are being worked out at an inter-ministerial level and will be taken in the near future,” he reportedly said. “Their consequences will have a significant negative impact on the people of Lithuania.”
Kaliningrad, formerly Königsberg, capital of East Prussia, was captured from Nazi Germany by the Red Army in April 1945 and ceded to the Soviet Union after World War II. It is landlocked between Poland to the south and Lithuania to the north and east.
According to Lithuania, the ban on the transit of goods through its territory is only the implementation of European measures in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the European Union Ambassador to Moscow, Markus Ederer, to discuss the situation, which the Kremlin described on Monday as “serious”.
“Lithuania does not take unilateral measures – it applies EU sanctions,” said Markus Ederer, quoted by RIA. (Written by Guy Faulconbridge; French version Dagmarah Mackos, editing by Kate Entringer)
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