Lithuania prohibits Russia from transporting goods to the Russian exclave Kaliningrad Oblast via its domestic railways. The matter is still fermenting. Lithuania's approach can be said to be a blow to Russia. After all, Lithuania's ban covers 50% of all goods shipped from Russia to Kaliningrad.
Russia will naturally not give up. After the incident, Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council Patrushev warned Lithuania of "serious consequences" and the Lithuanian people will feel the pain because of what the country's government has done.
Precisely because Kaliningrad is strategically crucial to Russia’s security, Vice Chairman of the Russian Federation Security Council Medvedev even said on June 27 that the transit ban on Kaliningrad is a Western move against Russia. as part of a "proxy war" waged by Moscow and said Moscow's retaliatory measures against Lithuania would be "very tough". He said many of the retaliatory measures would be economic in nature and "capable of cutting off the supply of oxygen to our Baltic neighbors that have taken hostile action".
Medvedev said that EU did not insist on the implementation of restrictions, so Lithuania's implementation of restrictions was "bowing to the United States and once again proving its stupid 'Russian-phobic' attitude."
Medvedev also said that Russia could also take "asymmetric" retaliatory measures. But he said: "Such an upgrade is a bad choice. And those who suffer because of it are ordinary people in Lithuania. Their living standards, according to European standards , are simply like beggars."
Lithuania said that it is just is upholding EU sanctions, which the EU bloc supports. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Landsbergis said that "the ban on the transshipment of goods through Lithuania to Kaliningrad is not Lithuania's decision, but was made based on relevant EU sanctions against Russia."
Lithuanian President Nauseda said he did not believe Russia would launch a military challenge because his country is a member of NATO .
Indeed, there is a high probability that Russia will not launch a military attack on Lithuania, but retaliation in other aspects has already begun.
Recently, the Russian hacker group Killnet claimed responsibility for cyber attacks on Lithuanian websites in response to Lithuania's ban on EU-approved goods entering the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad through its territory.
Killnet acknowledged the attack on its official Telegram channel.
"Currently, we have disrupted the work of the entire Lithuanian online accounting department. We are certainly surprised that Lithuania uses online systems for accounting. Amazon servers cannot save the situation," the hacker group said. "Comrades, what about blocking traffic to Kaliningrad? Maybe you heard something."
The Ministry of Public and Media Relations of the Lithuanian government stated that some Lithuanian public institutions suffered cyber attacks.
The National Cyber Security Center (NKSC), part of the Lithuanian Ministry of Defense, has warned that distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks are underway targeting Lithuania’s secure national data transmission network, other government agencies and private companies. Some users of the National Security Data Transfer Network are unable to access services and efforts are underway to restore them to normal. The National Telecommunications Core Center is identifying the most attacked websites in real time and taking additional protective measures, while also working closely with international network service providers to find solutions.
It is said that this attack is likely to last for several days, especially attacks on the communications, energy and financial sectors.
According to the latest news, the EU may pressure Lithuania to relax cargo transshipment restrictions on Russia and allow some goods to pass through Lithuanian territory into Russia's Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad in order to ease the deadlock between the EU and Russia. (Inoue frog)
