Russia and Baltic neighbours going through particularly rough patch

Relations between Russian and its Baltic neighbours are rarely cordial. And they are going through a particularly rough patch at the moment. It's hard to see them kissing and making up. A decade ago, the Baltics took on the fading might of the Soviet Union, and won. Latvia and Lithuania have just celebrated the ten-year anniversary of their bloody repulsion of Soviet security forces, sent by Mikhail Gorbachev to crush aspirations of independence.
These days, no Russian tanks rumble along Riga's streets. But relations between Moscow and its Baltic neighbours are at best tolerant -- and at present, they are going through a rough patch. The noisiest Russo-Baltic spat right now is over oil. LUKoil, Russia's biggest petroleum company, is threatening to cut off crude supplies to Mazheikiu Nafta, a large Lithuanian refinery.
LUKoil's in a huff because Mazheikiu, it says, sees the firm as nothing more than a supplier of crude, and has rebuffed the Russians' proposals to cooperate in the Baltic market. On January 19 Mazheikiu, which is controlled by Williams International of the US, retorted that it would stop supplying oil products to LUKoil's Baltic subsidiary in the event of a crude cut-off, and would push for a cancellation of LUKoil's operating licenses.

It's hard to envisage a quick solution. Oil is one of the more intractable topics in post-Soviet relations. Russia claims to have the upper hand, arguing that the Baltic states, like most other ex-Soviet countries, rely on its oil, gas and power. But Balts realize that companies like LUKoil covet Mazheikiu's processing capacity, and need to retain access to their ice-free ports.
And it's not just about oil. As the Mazheikiu row has flared up, so too has one of the region's nastiest squabbles - over the alleged mistreatment of the ethnic Russian populations of Estonia and Latvia. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian politicians have alleged -- with some justification -- that Russians have effectively been second-class citizens in the two Baltic states.
(Lithuania, unlike its neighbours, has very few ethnic Russians.) This year, the Russian parliament has launched an investigation into the arrest last November in Latvia of a group of ethnic Russians who were protesting discrimination. Parliament has enlisted the help of the FSB, one of the successors to the KGB, and has refused to ratify a bill that would finally fix the Russo-Latvian border.
The Balts have held their ground: on January 19, the Latvian government said its human rights record was completely up to international standards, and the Estonian ethnic affairs minister brandished a survey that reportedly proved that Estonia's Russians were in no way disadvantaged.

This sort of give and take is pretty typical. But it's been given a sharper edge this year, thanks to persistent rumours about Kaliningrad, the Russian territorial exclave on the Baltic coast. In mid-January, it was reported that Russia had stationed nuclear missiles in Kaliningrad; Russia hotly denied the report, but the Baltic press seized on it, claiming that Russia was trying to pressure its neighbours not to join NATO. Meanwhile, the Russian press has been getting much exercised about reports that Germany might demand Kaliningrad (formerly a Prussian province) in return for the cancellation of Russia's Soviet-era debt.
So what next? Surprisingly, it seems that Russia is willing to play peacemaker. On January 19, Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister, said he had agreed to visit Latvia to mend fences. But the usually pacific Balts may not be in a conciliatory mood. Sweden, their firmest Western friend, has just taken over the presidency of the EU, and all three Baltic governments reckon the next six months will be their opportunity to get fully bedded down in the whole range of Euro-Atlantic institutions. The process begun in January 1991 is reaching its conclusion.