LONDON (Reuters) – One of President Vladimir Putin’s top allies arrived in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on Tuesday to discuss national security amid a row with NATO member Lithuania which stopped the transit of EU-sanctioned goods to Russian territory.
Nikolai Patrushev, the powerful secretary of Russia’s Security Council, will chair a meeting about security in Russia’s northwest in Kaliningrad, the state RIA news agency said.
RIA said the trip, which included a discussion about transport, was planned before Vilnius banned the transit of goods sanctioned by the European Union through Lithuanian territory to and from the exclave, citing EU sanction rules.
Kaliningrad, formerly the port of Koenigsberg, capital of East Prussia, was captured from Nazi Germany by the Red Army in April 1945 and ceded to the Soviet Union after World War Two. It is sandwiched between NATO members Poland and Lithuania.
Lithuania said the ban on the transit of sanctioned goods across its territory was merely the implementation of EU sanctions, part of a swathe of measures intended to punish President Vladimir Putin for the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s foreign ministry is due to summon the EU’s ambassador to Moscow over the situation which the Kremlin said on Monday was beyond serious.
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Nick Macfie)
