In his second term, US President Donald Trump has displayed a talent for bringing attention to often overlooked issues in international affairs. In his first two weeks back in office, Trump has set a spotlight on the security and future of Greenland in the context of the geopolitical race among the United States, China, and Russia over influence in the Arctic, for example. But there’s another territory awaiting Trump’s and the democratic world’s attention: the Russian exclave territory of Kaliningrad. In line with its ambitious, out-of-the-box thinking, the Trump administration should seek out a deal to demilitarize Kaliningrad and perhaps even return it to the European family of states.
Kaliningrad is a highly militarized Russian territory sandwiched between the Baltic Sea, Poland, and Lithuania—an “island” in the middle of NATO and the European Union (EU) separated from the Russian mainland by some four hundred miles. It houses the Russian Baltic Fleet, Russian armed forces, and, reportedly, tactical nuclear weapons. Kaliningrad (formerly the German city of Königsberg) came into Soviet possession during World War II and was named after the Russian Bolshevik and Soviet leader Mikhail Kalinin, even though there is no record of him ever stepping foot in the territory. After the ouster or killing of its original German inhabitants in the aftermath of World War II and the arrival of mainly ethnic Russians, it has remained under Moscow’s rule ever since.
Voice of Ukraine 