LRT English Newsletter – November 22, 2024.
While European officials are calling it a “hybrid attack”, some analysts are saying this is no longer in the grey zone – attacks on infrastructure in the Baltic region increasingly look like sabotage action. And not the first.
Here’s the rundown of what happened. On Monday, officials and telecoms company reps in Sweden, Finland and Lithuania announced that two cables in the Baltic Sea have been cut. Telia Lietuva, the telecoms firm responsible for the connection, said it was very unlikely the damage was accidental. Now, the Swedish and Finnish investigators are also probing the incident as sabotage.
Recall, in 2023 a Chinese ship was credited for damaging a pipeline between Estonia and Finland in the sea. Most officials at the time maintained it was an accident, but this time it could be different.First of all, this comes on the back of a series of arson and other attacks allegedly carried out by Russia in the Baltic states and throughout Europe. In Lithuania, the most high-profile example would be the series of self-igniting DHL packages sent overseas. But there were others – a dual Spanish and Russian national tried to set fire to a company reportedly supplying Ukraine as well as ongoing GPS jamming attacks. Secondly, the nature of the damage seems different and unlikely to have been accidental, Telia Lietuva rep said.
Previously, a concert of analysts, observers, as well as NATO and Baltic officials have warned that Russia will be expanding its actions in the Baltic Sea. “Moscow's escalating hybrid activities against NATO and EU countries are also unprecedented in their variety and scale, creating significant security risks,” the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Britain said in a statement.
Vilnius, so far, has been largely low-key in its rhetoric. The defence minister has called for sanctions in case a state actor is found to be behind the attack, while the president’s office called for stepped-up naval patrols. The Lithuanian prosecutors have also opened a terror attack probe, while a Chinese ship is now seen as the main potential culprit. So that’s about it, for now.
LITHUANIA HAS A NEW PM
Gintautas Paluckas, the deputy chairman of the Social Democrats (LSDP), has been confirmed as the country’s new prime minister. He has 15 days to form the cabinet and present the government’s programme to the parliament.
On Thursday, Paluckas said he would seek to boost defence spending to 3.5 percent of GDP and that there would be no change in Lithuania’s policy toward Russia or Belarus. Although, an undeclared earlier meeting between him and the head of a firm previously handling now-sanctioned Belarusian fertiliser exports via Klaipėda, raised eyebrows.
Meanwhile, Paluckas has yet to disclose his plan on how to normalise relations with China.
TELTONIKA DEBACLE
Teltonika, Lithuania’s key high-tech company, delivered a blow on Friday, announcing it would no longer build its multi-billion euro tech park. The project coincided with the country’s Taiwan pivot (revisit it with this piece here) and with the company signing a tech transfer deal with Taipei to manufacture advanced semiconductors in Lithuania. But the wording of the deal made it increasingly difficult to decipher – did Taiwan actually hand over advanced chips (for the first time in Taipei’s history), or some of the less important semiconductor packaging tech? In any case, the deal was lauded by the government as something concrete to show for its controversial foreign policy move. At the time, Teltonika was saying that semiconductors would make up 5 percent of Lithuania’s production output.
So what happened? Publicly, the founder of Teltonika, Arvydas Paukštys, claimed that red tape was hindering the plant’s development, which was immediately dismissed by the government. Behind the scenes, however, the speculative explanations varied, but we will wait to hear more concrete evidence.
After a flurry of public statements and promises from Lithuanian officials, both outgoing and incoming, Paukštys backtracked a little, saying he was “not giving up hope”. The news also prompted – or coincided with – a visit from Taiwan, with the delegation also including drone manufacturers.
ŽEMAITAITIS AND ANTI-SEMITISM ROW
This story will probably dominate the news agenda for a while, so here’s the latest update – the General Prosecutor’s Office has requested for the parliament to lift the legal immunity of MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis. A quick recap – he’s the head of the populist Nemunas Dawn party which will form a ruling coalition with the Social Democrats (LSDP) and Democrats “For Lithuania”. He is also being charged with incitement to hatred for his statements about Israel and the Jewish people (read more here).
Meanwhile, more people gathered on Thursday for a second protest against the incoming government coalition.
US VISAS
The US embassy in Vilnius will stop issuing immigration visas, moving the process to Stockholm, Sweden. This is part of the consolidation of services, with other countries including Denmark and Norway also being served in Sweden, according to the US reps.
But this was enough to spark a disinformation wave on Lithuanian social media, as the date coincided with the permission for Ukraine to strike Russia with Western rockets. The dominant narrative was that the United States was pulling their embassy out of Lithuania in preparation for war.
Nonsense, pretty much everyone said. The embassy remains operating in Vilnius.
ECONOMY UPDATE
Businesses in Lithuania are due to exhaust the quota for labour migrants from non-EU countries, ie third-country nationals, by the end of this month. Most of them are being channelled to the logistics sector.
In other news, Lithuania will double the production capacity of the state-owned small-arms ammunition manufacturer, Giraitės Ginkluotės Gamykla (GGG). This is the same facility that will host the US defence giant Northrop Grumman and is also eyeing cooperation opportunities with Germany’s Rheinmetall.
And, oddly enough, Latvian nationals are reportedly flocking to Lithuania to find work. Most of them are coming from the depopulated border regions.
EDITOR’S PICKS:
– A former Belarusian volunteer fighter in Ukraine, who was later deported from Lithuania and barred entry to the Schengen zone, has been extradited to Belarus from Vietnam. The story is still developing, so here is what's known so far.
– An American ice skater has been given Lithuanian citizenship after several failed attempts in the past.
– A Lithuanian cafe is becoming LA-famous.
– Lithuania strikes Japan with meaty cutlets.
– Here’s the end of the psychiatrist saga who “treated’ gay people: he’s been fired.
– The outgoing foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, will leave politics for now.
– The political drama in Berlin could affect Germany’s plans to deploy a brigade to Lithuania.
– Nausėda had a chat with Trump.
– Train services between Vilnius and Latvia’s Daugavpils might restart.
– Time to brush up on your Čiurlionis: Vilnius Airport will have a new title, for a while.
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