Eastern Europe Remains Fearful of Russia

Henry Srebrnik [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

With Vladimir Putin engaged in great power politics in former Soviet regions like Ukraine, nations on Russia’s borders, especially the Baltic states and Poland, have asked NATO for more military support.

The United States plans to substantially increase the deployment of heavy weapons and other equipment there.

Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s newly-elected Law and Justice Party government in Warsaw is far more assertive than its predecessors in its relations with Moscow.

When Law and Justice was in the opposition for eight years, it agitated repeatedly for fresh investigations into the 2010 crash of a plane in Smolensk, Russia, that killed 96 people, including Kaczynski’s twin brother, Lech Kaczynski, then the country’s president, as well as top Polish politicians, generals, social activists and artists.

Some party officials, including a few with top positions in the new government, suggested that the crash might have been orchestrated and covered up by the Russians.

The new foreign minister, Witold Waszczykowski, has called on Russia to cooperate in a fuller investigation of the crash.

Estonia, a former Soviet republic, has had a tense relationship with its Russian population, who make up a quarter of its people. Fearing that Putin may use them to destabilize the country, the Estonians recently held their largest-ever war games and are one of the few countries to meet its NATO commitment to spend two per cent of GDP on defence.

In Russian-populated cities such as Narva, near the border with Russia, more than 80 per cent of the population is ethnically Russian, and they rely largely on news from Russian state media. So the Estonians have also launched a campaign to bolster what they call the country’s “psychological defences” against Russian misinformation.

Neighbouring Latvia, too, worries about threats from Russia. Its easternmost region, Latgale, has a large population of ethnic Russians, especially in Daugavpils, its largest city.

Russian nationalists see this region -- about a quarter of the country-- as fertile ground for their machinations to divide and weaken NATO’s easternmost fringe.

Janis Sarts, the state secretary for Latvia’s Defense Ministry, noted that regular rotations of NATO troops and aircraft through Latvia had sent a firm message to Moscow that “the risks would be tremendous” if it tried to foment discontent.

Last spring Latvian soldiers and the local police held a joint exercise in Rezekne, the Latgale region’s historical and cultural capital, in a show of defiance.

In a new development, troops from Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine will form a new brigade, scheduled to be operational in 2017. It would comprise 4,000 troops and would work to strengthen defence and act as a possible deterrent force in the region.

“The multinational brigade is a sign, symbol and very clear signal to anyone who would want to undermine peace in Europe,” said Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz.

The brigade will be headquartered in Lublin, Poland. Lithuania and Poland are both members of NATO and the European Union, while Ukraine is not, though the Kyiv government has expressed its desire to join both organizations.

NATO is scheduled to meet in Warsaw in July for a summit and Polish officials are expected to again ask for the permanent presence of NATO troops on their territory.