Lithuania fears new Russian takeover
By Warner M. Montgomery Warner@TheColumbiaStar.com

Several years ago, I visited Vilnius, Lithuania where I spoke to a university symposium about free press in the U.S. Participants were from Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Germany, and Russia. I have continued to correspond with my host, Andrius, through email concerning events in Lithuania. This is an edited version of his last email. If he is correct, the U.S. government should be paying closer attention to Russia and Putin.

Warner,

I don't know if your heard Belorussia and Russia are going to join. That means Russia swallows Belorussia and comes to the border of Lithuania. Then Lithuania will be between the main Russia body and its territory gained after WWII, the district of Kaliningrad. Consequently, Lithuania will become a target in Russian geopolitics. Now Lithuania is just the number three enemy of Russia after USA and Poland. This is very sad for us.

We can expect Russia to act out in Belorussia something like Anschluss in Austria did in 1938 by Nazis. Then the Nazis held a plebiscite where they received 99.73 percent of the vote and joined the country to the Third Reich.

Nazis did that immediately, but in this case we can guess Putin will wait. First Putin needs to solve hot points with Ukraine (a huge and very rich country, very important for Russia) and Georgia. They cannot focus on Lithuania and other Baltic countries while dealing with Belorussia, Ukraine, and Georgia.

You can imagine it all as a reverse process in the sense that failure of the Soviet Union started in Lithuania. Lithuania was the first country to declare its independence from Moscow. Then other former Soviet countries sought independence.

Now I guess Russian geopoliticians speculate a reverse process in which Baltic countries could be somehow lured back, although they have almost done the job in the sphere of energy and finances. Their first goal is to prevent further western influence in Ukraine and Georgia by blocking plans of their leaders to join NATO and EU. They have already succeeded in Belorussia.

We in Lithuania still enjoy freedom of thought and speech. We still use Lithuanian as an official language, but our democracy is in trouble.

Andrius