Authors

Discussion

Kaliningrad is the westernmost subject of the Russian Federation. An exclave the size of Northern Ireland, this small piece of Russia in the heart of Europe does not ordinarily receive much scholarly attention, punditry or commentary. However, as a result of recent events, it has acquired an international visibility as a pivot in EU-Russian relations. In response to Finnish and Swedish accession to NATO, Moscow threatened to (openly) deploy nuclear missile in the region; while the implementation of sanctions on transit to Kaliningrad and visa bans by neighbouring states have forced Brussels to confront its geopolitical subjectivity in relation to Kaliningrad. This paper seeks to address these political developments by reviewing the main geopolitical approaches that are being applied to Kaliningrad. It seeks to capture how thinking in terms of geopolitics can bring the role of Kaliningrad in EU-Russian relations into focus by tracing the logic and contexts of the actors. As such, it will demonstrate the importance of case-specific analysis for our understanding of contemporary EU-Russian relations.