President Dalia Grybauskaitė’s meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last week in Helsinki provided answers to certain old questions and raised new questions.  The news agency Reuters quoted Grybauskaitė saying that Putin confirmed the Russia was negotiating with Poland over the sale of the Mažeikiai Company, formerly known as Mažeikių Nafta.

Linas Balsys, the president’s spokesperson, also stated to BNS that Putin had confirmed this. The phrase “Putin confirmed” is noteworthy, considering the fact that, according to available information, Putin is the only source of the announcement – he said it and he confirmed it.

Putin’s thoughts on the conditions for renewing oil supply to the Mažeikiai Company are even more interesting than that stylistic somersault. The talks that were mentioned will determine whether Russia will renew oil supply to Lithuania – Grybauskaitė retold this statement by Putin to Reuters. It is unclear why no one notices how sensational the Russian prime minister’s statement is. Russia stopped oil supply via the Druzhba oil pipeline more than two years ago, immediately after Lithuania dared selling Mažeikių Nafta to the buyer that was not acceptable to the Kremlin. However, Russia claimed the reasons were purely technical in nature – allegedly the old pipeline had many holes and a lot of money was needed to fix the pipeline.

This was probably the Lithuanian diplomacy’s failure too, because the issue has still has not been investigated till the end. It is good that Putin did this for us.

The Russian prime minister’s statements are important, because Russia publicly admitted it was using economic measures to achieve political goals and this way was punishing neighbouring countries for showing the slightest signs of independence. Such a behaviour by Russia shows the country is not prepared to adhere to the principle of reciprocity in relations with other countries. It is sad, if this seems like a natural, self-explanatory thing. It is sad that we accept such an announcement fatalistically, with our heads bowed, even forgetting that this is how Russia dictates the rules of its game not only to our country but also to the EU.

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Spurga concludes his article saying, ‘during the meeting with Grybauskaite, Putin admitted that a partial energy blockade was being used against Lithuania. Even if he completely made up the fact of the talks on the sale of the company, he clearly implied that the Kremlin’s goal was to control the Mažeikiai Company. Such a manoeuvre revealed that this was a political interest of the Kremlin, not an economic interest of Russia.
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This commentary is published by courtesy of Mr Saulius Spurga.  The article was published by Lietuvos žinios daily on 17 February.