The European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs approved a report made by MEP Gabrielius Landsbergis on EU-Russia relations. If this report will be the foundation of a resolution on EU-Russia relations, then it would lead a complicated international situation into a dead end, with no room for compromise – exactly what the Baltic provocateurs aiming to lobby USA geopolitical interest are counting on.
Gabrielius Landsbergis presented his report project on EU-Russia relations in March. Within this document, Russia is labeled as an aggressor and the one who provoked war in Ukraine (as well as Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria). Landsbergis Jr. asked the EU countries to review any military economic or political cooperation with Russia and keep a united stand on isolating this state and strengthening ties with NATO, actively combat “Russian propaganda” as well as the fifth column within EU states and Eastern Partnership countries, who support Moscow’s policy.
Until this report was approved by the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament, it was a phenomenon for not just Lithuanian politics, but internal elite relations as well. The young Gabrielius Landsbergis had to prove to his fellow party members, the Lithuanian conservatives that, at his young age of 33, he has other reasons to be the president of the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, aside from being the grandson of the most illustrious (!) Vytautas Landsbergis himself. Like say, he also made this report – it could lead to further decline in the EU-Russia relations. And that is the essence of the Lithuanian conservatives’ foreign policy program, just as its former leader Andrius Kubilius wrote in The Strategy for Containing Russian Soft Power
But now that the report is approved by the European Parliament, it is no longer just about the Lithuanians. The report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs is the founding documents for the creation of the resolution on EU-Russia relations.
If Landsbergis Jr.’s fiction will be in the foundation of the corresponding resolution, then it will be a dead end for EU-Russia relations. A dead end, inescapable with any compromise.
Because the report, approved by the Committee on Foreign Affair (the text is already available on the European Parliament site), in its recommendation part proposes increasing sanctions and sending weapons to Ukraine if Russia does not give Crimea to Ukraine. So Gabrielius Landsbergis and his co-authors and consultants are not just proposing to strain the international situation even more, they are de facto proposing to go to war with Russia. Because Russia couldn’t give Crimea to Ukraine even if it wanted to. Crimea won’t give itself to Ukraine: the absolute majority of peninsula’s population voted in last year’s referendum to leave Ukraine and join Russia. And no matter how much Russia-fighters try to close their eyes on this fact and discuss the Crimean question while ignoring the referendum, it boils down to the fact that this referendum, this popular expression of will retains the decisive role in the discussion of Crimea’s belonging.
What will the West and Ukraine do with those two million people who make up the peninsula’s population and voted to be part of Russia? Let the Ukrainian Army shell it, like they do in Donbass, so the population would “flee to their Russia” or become more loyal to Kiev? The Ukrainians would love to do that and the West could turn a blind eye and have deep discussions on the “the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of violence”. And Russia? Can it just give away a region it accepted into its federation and condone mass repressions against people, who believed in it and called its homeland by becoming Russian citizens? It is impossible. The entry of Crimea into the Russian Federation is an irreversible decision, it can’t be undone.
That is why the adoption of a resolution based on Landsbergis’ project by the European Parliament would lead to a dead end.
Aside from that, this document is a classic example of lobbying US interest in Europe. Its essence boils down to cutting Russia-EU relations and not letting them restore.
“Reiterates that uncompromising respect for the rule of law is a core and founding principle of the EU, and rejects past attempts to put forward pragmatic interpretations of the rules to accommodate Russia as a trade partner; calls, therefore, on the strict, swift and unconditional application of the rule of law – in the event of any breach of the rules – and of the principle of free and fair competition, including in the proceedings against Gazprom” is one of the reports characteristic fragments. And it mentions proceedings against Gazprom, even though the whole document is dedicated to the situation in Ukraine, Crimea and the Eastern Partnership program. More of the same: severing Russia-Europe ties in order to strengthen USA’s position in Europe. In this particular case –the destruction of Europe and Russia’s united energy market, so the European countries would have no other alternative, but buy American shale gas at thrice the price.
The same report, among other things, is a provocation. After the Minsk Agreements there are no objective reasons for the further strain in Europe’s relations with Russia – the worst thing that could happen, is that the conflict may be frozen for an indefinite period. And the United States, for reasons mentioned above, want the further strain in these relations.
And this is where the Eastern European puppets play their fiddle in protecting American interests by provoking Russia into a harsh and aggressive reaction, in order to declare that Russia attacked first.
A characteristic moment: the provocateurs are no longer even hiding the fact that they are provocateurs. Petro Poroshenko honestly declared that Ukraine will fight to take the Donetsk Airport back and an expert on information warfare J. Michael Waller in an interview to Lithuanian DELFI publicly taught Lithuanians on what to do to get Russia mad. “When you know that the Security Council permanent members are going to cast a veto, the impulse is: Oh, I'm just not gonna raise it, because it's gonna get vetoed. But look at in a different way: Let's provoke Russia into vetoing everything that's good: the human rights, security, self-determination…
The Buryat people have a self-determination movement, they want to save Lake Baikal because it's their ancestral homeland. And so you write the resolution in the Buryat language as well. Just for the provocative value of it,” Waller tutors the Lithuanian diplomats on provocations.
Or here’s another “great” recommendation for the MFA Linkevičius and presidente Grybauskaitė: “This would be a great time to think of the legal status of Kaliningrad. Which doesn't exist. If you look at the German surrender, they surrendered all their claims, but the status of Kaliningrad, or Konigsberg, was never resolved. To this day it has never been resolved.” An endearingly honest expert opinion, the Lithuanian leadership should take that as example and admit that their raison d'être is not democracy or any European values, but inventing provocations against Russia.
The report on EU-Russia relations which was approved the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs was just another provocation. Whatever USA’s and Russia’s relations may be (and the recent meeting of Vladimir Putin and USA State Secretary John Kerry once again proved that the Americans can easily change their tactics and talk about cooperation, dialogue and another “reset” instead of direct conflict), Eastern European client states will always do what they kept doing: make Russophobe hysteria, adopt anti-Russian statements… It is not like they know how to do anything else in the international space.
Translated by: Pavel Shamshiev
