By Galina Korol | 2024-06-06

KYIV -- Russia is signaling its apparent decision to revise its borders with Lithuania and Finland in the Baltic Sea.

The Kremlin made its views clear in a proposed May 21 cabinet resolution drafted by the Defense Ministry.

Although the draft vanished from the Kremlin's legal affairs site soon after the government publicized it, its impact lingers, analysts told Kontur.

"We have a saying here: 'A word isn't a sparrow -- when it flies away, you won't catch it,'" said military analyst Pavlo Lakiychuk, who heads the security programs of the Strategy XXI Center for Global Studies.

"The people who released this 'bird' were counting on it flying away and the news spreading," he told Kontur.

Per the draft, "Russia intends to proclaim as its domestic waters the part of the basin on the east side of the Gulf of Finland and also near the cities of Baltiysk and Zelenogradsk in Kaliningrad province," the Moscow Times reported May 21.

The draft resolution called for "changes ... to the geographic positions that determine the location of the baselines from which the width of Russia's territorial waters is measured."

"Zelenogradsk is a base for the Russian Baltic Fleet, and there's a major intelligence hub there, while Baltiysk is the Baltic Fleet's main base," said Lakiychuk.

"For Russia, the maritime space is primarily an area for combat," he said.

Flouting international law

Russia officially cited the need to update an obsolete Soviet demarcation system dating back to 1985, according to the Moscow Times.

As international waters are shared, however, all the Baltic Sea littoral states should be involved in any revision processes, say lawyers and other analysts.

"The number of nautical miles [between countries] is established very clearly by international law," said Kyiv-based international security analyst Taras Zhovtenko of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation.

"Yet here the Russians are going and unilaterally deciding that the circumstances have changed," he told Kontur.

"Consequently they're physically switching these markers around," Zhovtenko added.

With the May 21 draft resolution, Russia has decided to disregard all international norms and rules, observers say.

"We need to remember that Russia embraces a policy of imperialism," Ukrainian reservist officer and defense analyst Kateryna Koval told Kontur.

The Russian threat is evidenced by the 2022 assault on Ukraine, she added, noting that the Kremlin's ambitions extend beyond a desire "to revive the Soviet Union."

Hybrid war against NATO

The Kremlin's talk of altering borders in the Baltic Sea is motivated purely by politics, as part of the Russian Defense Ministry's hybrid war against NATO members, analysts said.

A May 23 incident was probably related to that hybrid war, Lakiychuk said.

"It was rather significant when without any discussion the Russians removed [Estonia's] border buoys from the Narva River, which is a natural boundary between Russia and the Baltic states," he said.

"Our Baltic partners decided not to make a big issue of this, but this action by Russia ... speaks volumes. And obviously, it's 90% certain that in doing this Russia meant to try to cause a flare-up," he said.

The Narva River incident was a test to see how NATO members would react, Zhovtenko said.

"We need to understand that NATO was and still is first and foremost a defense bloc, so the only condition under which it can be proactive is ... an act of aggression," he said, meaning it would not go to war over the removal of buoys.

Russia will not stop at "testing the waters," Ukrainian political analyst and National Anti-Crisis Group managing partner Taras Zagorodniy warned.

Baltic Sea security

Leaders of government, defense ministers and diplomats of Russia's Baltic Sea neighbors noticed the rapidly withdrawn May 21 draft resolution.

"Finland's [parliamentary] defense and foreign affairs committees held emergency meetings on May 22," Voice of America's Ukrainian service reported.

"Afterward, the Finnish prime minister, Petteri Orpo, stated that the political leadership was 'closely monitoring the situation.' He added that for the time being he did not see 'any cause for major concern.'"

Swedish Armed Forces supreme commander Micael Bydén warned Russia not to have any fantasies about the Baltic Sea, German news outlet RND reported May 22.

"I'm sure that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's goal is to gain control over the Baltic Sea. He's probably also turned his gaze on the Åland Islands," he said.

It is crucial for the Baltic Sea to remain open and secure, he said.

"The Baltic Sea must not become a playground for Putin where he'll terrorize NATO countries," Bydén said in response to a question from RND journalists.