Lithuanian president calls Russia's Kaliningrad threat to NATO 'desperate'

KARMELAVA, Kaunas district - Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has called Russia's latest threat to NATO countries over the Kaliningrad region a desperate statement.

"You know, in this respect Russia surprises us little. It seems that it really feels backed into a corner, and an abundance of truly desperate statements has been clearly visible recently. This was one of them," Nauseda told journalists on Thursday.

He was responding to a statement published this week on the social network X by the Russian embassy in Belgium, saying Moscow was prepared to use its entire weapons arsenal if NATO countries attempted to isolate the Kaliningrad region from the rest of Russia. Moscow also claimed that NATO is creating threats to the Russian fleet in the Baltic region and modelling scenarios for the separation of Kaliningrad.

According to Nauseda, NATO is a defensive organisation that has never planned, is not planning and will not plan to take aggressive actions regarding Kaliningrad.

"Lithuania, for its part, as a state through which Russian transit takes place, remains committed to fulfilling its role as a transit country in accordance with all international obligations," Nauseda added.

"I think we should simply understand in this respect that Russia is currently in a state where it will throw such statements around more often, but we certainly should not give in to provocations and must have our own very clear answers," Nauseda said.

This is not the first time this year that Moscow has accused NATO or Alliance states of plans to block or seize the Kaliningrad region. In May, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow was capable of destroying those who would attempt to attack the exclave.