Agreement with Lithuania suspended by Russia

Russia has unilaterally suspended an agreement with Lithuania on providing information about weapons based in the Russian region of Kaliningrad, Lithuania’s Ministry of Defence said yesterday.

The ministry has received a diplomatic note from Russia, stating that Russia is unilaterally suspending the 2001 bilateral Lithuanian-Russian agreement on additional confidence and security building measures.

According to the ministry, the agreement stipulated that the states will exchange information about their armed forces as well as conduct bilateral military inspections.

“It was agreed to use the format of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE). On the Russian side, the agreement was applied to its forces in Kaliningrad. After Russia imposed a moratorium on the CFE in 2007, it ceased providing information, but bilateral inspections continued”, the Ministry of Defence said.

Kaliningrad, formerly called Königsberg, is the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast (region), the Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. The territory borders on NATO and European Union members Poland and Lithuania, and is autonomously separated from the rest of Russia.