President’s adviser: Lithuania does not consider starting ‘repairs’ of railway tracks to Russia

After the European Commission allowed Russia to transport some sanctioned goods to and from its Kaliningrad exclave via Lithuania, there have been calls in the public sphere to dismantle or start “repairing” Russian-gauge railway tracks leading to Kaliningrad. Kęstutis Budrys, chief national security adviser to the president, says this would be an unlawful action, whereas Lithuania will not follow in the steps of countries that disregard international law, their commitments and agreements.

In an interview to the radio station Žinių Radijas on Tuesday, Budrys said that Lithuania was not considering any move like dismantling railway tracks or starting to repair them.

“We are not in the same place like Russia and we should not forget this even in the heat of emotions. (&) All the measures we apply are lawful, based on certain decisions, all of the decisions without any exception may be appealed against in court and that is what we are proud of, unlike Russia, which it would seem might take advantage and abuse the situation,” said Budrys.

“To pretend that something is not working and some valves have to be turned off or something has to be dismantled because it is allegedly broken or rusted away, we witnessed Russia do all of that over purported breakdowns of the oil pipeline leading to Mažeikių nafta [refinery] in 2006. Such or similar actions are not in the spectrum of our measures,” the president’s adviser stated.

He added that the so-called repairs of railway tracks would be unacceptable, whereas discussions should instead focus on cutting ties with Russia in other non-energy sectors.

“There are other areas where we are tied to supplies from Russia. There are various materials that we receive, not only energy resources. We may substitute them, reorient logistics, transport flows, which we had talked a lot about but still saw that the money was the greatest there [in Russia] and thus business thinking and political will were lacking,” added Budrys.

Furthermore, according to the adviser, what was surprising in the current situation was not Russia’s behaviour, but the astonishment expressed by Western partners over Russia’s actions. This, he says, suggests that the West is still very naïve and overoptimistic that there are common grounds with Russia, with which an agreement could be reached and it would fulfil its commitments.

“It is very hard for Western leaders to overcome this, just like it was a real shock when the port of Odesa was attacked soon after an agreement on grain export was reached,” said Budrys, adding that Russia has been manipulating, distorting facts and telling lies to Western leaders.