Todays Important News Stories and Analysis: 2-27-2022 - The Best Explanation of the Importance of Kaliningrad in Putin's Invasion of Ukraine
How Russia was allowed to keep Kaliningrad, creating a legal disputable conundrum among the Western allies to this day.
Q. Lewis, what is Kaliningrad and why is it important to my understanding of the Russian invasion of Ukraine?
A. The best person to answer this, is my wife Lilia, who was a reporter for my old NPR affiliated Radio Show at WIOX FM. She spends the entire day dissecting geopolitics.
To begin with, for those who are unaware of my subject, KALININGRAD is the Russian province sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland along the Baltic Coast. So if you look at the map of the Baltic area, you can see that Kaliningrad is Russia’s perfect strategical deterrent against Europe.
Moving forward here, I just got the news from BBC-News stating that “Putin puts its nuclear deterrent on special alert.” Now, one may ask why I am focusing on Kaliningrad, which probably many of you never heard of; let alone knowing what or where it is. But if you know about it, please pardon my assumption, and let me share why it is an important topic relating not only to the invasion of Ukraine but to what it seems now an elevated world conflict.
It is loaded with nuclear missiles that could easily wipe out its neighboring European countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and can reach as far as Germany and France...and maybe even UK if undetected; that missiles direction is only going westward. If Putin (as a megalomaniac) decides to annihilate all its neighbors that surround Russia, it may result in almost annihilation of people in the world.
You may ask how Russia got that piece of land on the Baltic coast. Well, it’s a long story, but I’ll try to explain concisely the history of it.
Kaliningrad, which was formerly known as Konigsberg, was founded by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades in 1255 on the site of an ancient Prussian settlement. It became the capital of the State of the Teutonic Order between the Duchy of Prussia and East Prussia, circa, 1525-1701. In fact, the Prussian monarchy held Konigsberg as their coronation city until 1701 when the capital was moved to Berlin.
In World War II around 1944, the city was heavily damaged by the Allied bombing. In 1945 during the Battle of Konigsberg, it was captured by the then Soviet Union. When World War II ended in 1945, the winning allies (major participating countries only), the UK, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and the (USSR) UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS conferred in Potsdam (The Potsdam Agreement on April 9, 1945). As part of the agreement, Konigsberg was placed under the Soviet Administration. In 1946 the city was renamed KALININGRAD in honor of Soviet revolutionary, Mikhail Kalinin.
How Russia was allowed to keep Kaliningrad, is a legal disputable conundrum among the Western allies to this day.
Its history and present reality definitely play a role in how and why Russia invaded Ukraine this past week.
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The site host: Lewis Harrison is a writer, teacher, results-oriented life coach, and game theory strategist. He is the author of over twenty books, numerous self-improvement, and personal development courses, and is the former host of a talk show on NPR Affiliated WIOX91.3 FM. He can be contacted at LewisCoaches@gmail.com
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