Vilnius is seeking a unified response from the European Union and NATO to recent reports that Russia plans to revise its maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said on Thursday.
“We continue to work with our neighbours and partners at both the EU and NATO levels to ensure a unified response to the situation,” Šimonyte told reporters in Vilnius. “I believe [Russia’s] aim is to create uncertainty about what is being done.”
According to a document drafted by the Russian Defence Ministry and quoted by The Moscow Times, the Kremlin intends to declare part of the Baltic Sea east of the Gulf of Finland, as well as near the towns of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk in the Kaliningrad region, as its internal maritime waters.
The document suggests that on the border with Lithuania, the Curonian Spit area, Cape Taran, the area south of Cape Taran, and the Baltic Spit would be revised.
Following the report, the Baltic and Finnish leaders said they were cooperating and gathering information and urged against unnecessary confusion.
The Finnish broadcaster YLE reported later on Wednesday that information about plans to change the maritime borders with Finland and Lithuania had disappeared from the Russian Defence Ministry’s website.
The document was removed from the website after a military diplomatic source told Russian news agencies that Moscow had no intention of revising the borders in the Baltic Sea.
Šimonyte said that the Kremlin’s plans remain unclear.
“I think the Russian authorities deliberately want this to be impossible to clarify; they want it to be vague, to cause anxiety and fear,” she said, adding that there was no reason for concern.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on Wednesday that there was “nothing political” about the plans. He added, however, that “the level of confrontation in the region requires taking measures to ensure the country’s security”.
A Russian representative was on Wednesday summoned to Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry to explain the plans to redraw maritime borders.
Further reading
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
