Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has slammed Lithuania’s response to the information that Russian authorities have allegedly decided to change the country’s maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland in the Baltic Sea.
The Russian government resolution, shared by The Moscow Times on Wednesday, states that Russia intends to declare part of the waters in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland and the area near the towns of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk in the Kaliningrad region to be its internal waters.
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Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis has called this Russia’s “hybrid operation” and “an obvious escalation”.
Another Russian hybrid operation is underway, this time attempting to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about their intentions in the Baltic Sea. This is an obvious escalation against NATO and the EU, and must be met with an appropriately firm response.
— Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹 (@GLandsbergis) May 22, 2024
Moreover, the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Russia’s actions are seen as a deliberate, targeted, escalatory provocation to intimidate neighbouring countries and their societies.
The Finnish prime minister said he is in contact with colleagues in Latvia and Lithuania but criticised Vilnius’ strong rhetoric.
“In Finland, we always first investigate the facts in detail and then draw conclusions,” Orpo was quoted as saying by the Finnish publication Ilta-Sanomat.
According to Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen, there is no indication that the information on the redrawing of maritime borders was a Russian provocation.
Later on Wednesday, the Russian state-run news agency Interfax quoted a military-diplomatic source, saying that the Russian Federation has no plans to revise its national borders in the Baltic Sea.
“There have been and are no plans to review the territorial waters, economic zones, continental shelf off the coast and state borders of the Russian Federation in the Baltic Sea,” the source said on Wednesday.
According to the source, the intention to revise the coordinates defining the state border is aimed at rejecting incorrect coordinate points that establish reference points for measuring the width of Russia’s territorial waters, economic zone, and continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean, the Baltic Sea, and the Black Sea. The current points of the Russian territory in the Gulf of Finland, the source claimed, do not have a continuity and do not enclose the country’s territory, and therefore do not allow to determine the boundaries of the state waters.
The document on the planned changes to territorial waters was also removed from the Russian Defense Ministry‘s website on Wednesday afternoon.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday there was “nothing political” in the proposal to redraw maritime borders.
“You see how tensions and the level of confrontation are escalating, especially in the Baltic region. This requires appropriate steps from our relevant bodies to ensure our security,” Peskov said.
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