On June 1, a plane of LOT Polish Airlines was stopped in Kaliningrad, Russia just before taking off to Warsaw.

Kaliningrad is a small piece of Russia in Central Europe with a second port for the navy, which does not freeze in winter, it is a strictly militarized zone, neighboring with Poland and Lithuania, only 70 km from Belarus, which is in the customs union with Russia.

The 70 km wide Suwałki Pass connects Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania with Poland and the rest of the European Union, and at the same time this small section is now as important for Russia as it was important for Hitler to connect the Free City of Gdańsk with Germany before World War II, where a scrap of Poland was of strategic importance.

Under Donald Trump, there has been a strengthening of the sense of security in Eastern Europe. It happened, among others thanks to the introduction of the rotational presence of US troops in Poland, as well as the creation of the so-called “spike” of rapid response with Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland.

The number of regular “incidents” of Russian fighters in the skies over Poland and the Baltic countries – and therefore NATO – in recent years is very high.

A week ago, Belarus used its military fighter to bring to Minsk a passenger plane flying from Athens to Vilnius, registered in Poland by a subsidiary Ryanair Sun belonging to the Irish airline group Ryanair. The aim was to seize and arrest Roman Protasiewicz, one of the most active opposition journalists of Belarus.

Belarus managed to arrest the oppositionist along with his girlfriend, and, as the independent agency oko.press reported, Russia was most likely involved in the entire operation, as Belarus would not be able to cope with such a task alone.

The provocations began in the region of Eastern Europe.

Stopping the LOT aircraft (June 1) to extract and arrest the Russian oppositionist – Andriej Piwowarow – was a spectacular performance. We do not need to explain that the Russian forces had the opportunity and time to take care of this man before boarding the plane going to Warsaw.

Polish diplomatic services are silent for the time being.

On the same day, June 1, President Joe Biden officially announced that the United States will not continue sanctions against the Russian-German Nord Stream 2 project, the second branch of the largest gas pipeline in this region of Europe, aimed at minimizing or marginalizing or eliminating gas transit by onshore gas pipelines located in Poland and Ukraine. Thus, this most important German-Russian investment in recent years will dangerously make Europe energy dependent on Russia and, indirectly, on Germany.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia welcomes the United States’ intention to end sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project.

Let us add that for many years there have been dormant conflicts in several regions of Eastern Europe in Georgia – South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in Moldova – Transnistria, where Russian troops are stationed.
In recent years, the war in Ukraine caused loss of its control over Transnistria and Crimea.

People living in the Central and Eastern European region may slowly begin to feel The Russian Hug.

Poland is currently the country that accepts the most emigrants from Eastern Europe. Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Poland has accepted 3 million immigrants from that country. Currently, it accepts the largest number of immigrants from Belarus.

In Eastern Europe, a string is currently being tightened. What will Canada and its partners within NATO do to strengthen the sense of security in the region?