The shadow of the Ukraine war is also falling over the Baltic Sea. NATO can always expand its influence. Russia responded with threats.
State of emergency on the Baltic Sea, parts of the Hanseatic city of Wismar are restricted areas on Thursday and Friday. Police and security forces cordon off the area around the old wooden port. The Baltic Sea Council meets in the technology center there. Among other things, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) will meet her counterparts from nine other Baltic Sea countries.
The international organization, which was founded more than 30 years ago, was originally intended to bring more peace, security and prosperity to the Baltic Sea region. The topics are more topical than ever. Because the meeting in Wismar is overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Originally, Russia also belonged to the Council of the Baltic Sea States. However, after the start of his war of aggression, Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin had to leave him. For centuries, Russian influence in the Baltic Sea region has been an important security policy constant for the great power. With the end of the Cold War it began to dwindle and now it no longer exists. Last year, Sweden and Finland also aspired to join NATO. The Baltic Sea is now a NATO sea.
The Baltic Council was founded in 1992. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was intended to promote the peaceful integration of East and West and ensure stability in the region. It currently has ten members: Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland and Sweden. Russia left in May 2022.
This poses significant security problems for Russia. And it puts the region as a whole back at the center of geopolitical tensions.
War on the Baltic Coast
The Baltic Sea has had a busy history, often marked by wars between East and West. Numerous mines, chemical weapons and shipwrecks from the Second World War still lie on the seabed. This makes the Baltic Sea one of the dirtiest seas in the world today.
The Baltic Sea was once reserved for fishermen and amber traders. But due to their importance for trade and sea routes, their shores were contested early on. It was the Russian tsar Peter the Great – in whom Putin sees a role model – who defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War from 1700 to 1721 and thus established the Russian Tsarist Empire as a major European power and Russian dominance in the Baltic region.
The Soviet ruler Josef Stalin wanted to expand this dominance in the Winter War from 1939 with his attack on Finland. The Soviet army was forced to retreat after fierce resistance from the Finns, but Stalin nevertheless wrested a concession from the war opponent: Finland’s neutrality. This only ended with Putin’s attack on Ukraine.
After defeating Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union was able to further expand its influence over the Baltic Sea region. The Baltic countries were part of the great power and in the Warsaw Pact Poland and East Germany became Soviet satellite states. This also made the Baltic Sea an important economic factor for the great power. The Soviet Union processed more than 20 percent of its goods exports here.
Fear of Putin’s Russia
For many countries in the region, Soviet repression and the threat of nuclear power created a trauma that continues to this day. An example of this is Sweden: In the Swedish vocabulary there is the word “rysskräck”, which, according to the Duden, describes the fear of Russia.
