Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
04VILNIUS1353
2004-10-29 14:14:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Vilnius
Cable title:  

LITHUANIA CONCERNED OVER RUSSIAN AIR INCURSIONS

Tags:  MARR MCAP MOPS PBTS PGOV PINS PREL LH 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 VILNIUS 001353 

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EUR/NB, EUR/RPM, AND INR/B

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/28/2014
TAGS: MARR MCAP MOPS PBTS PGOV PINS PREL LH
SUBJECT: LITHUANIA CONCERNED OVER RUSSIAN AIR INCURSIONS
AND ATTEMPTS TO DIVIDE NATO

REF: A. USNATO 940


B. VILNIUS 1350

C. VILNIUS 987

D. VILNIUS 845

E. VILNIUS 305

Classified By: Pol/Econ Officer Trevor Boyd
for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 VILNIUS 001353

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EUR/NB, EUR/RPM, AND INR/B

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/28/2014
TAGS: MARR MCAP MOPS PBTS PGOV PINS PREL LH
SUBJECT: LITHUANIA CONCERNED OVER RUSSIAN AIR INCURSIONS
AND ATTEMPTS TO DIVIDE NATO

REF: A. USNATO 940


B. VILNIUS 1350

C. VILNIUS 987

D. VILNIUS 845

E. VILNIUS 305

Classified By: Pol/Econ Officer Trevor Boyd
for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary. Lithuania's opposition to hosting a Baltic
regional air safety conference under NATO-Russia Council
(NRC) auspices (ref A) is rooted in its assessment that
Russian policy aims to disrupt NATO relations with its newest
members and raise pressure on the air policing mission.
Though Russian violations of Lithuanian airspace, once
annually numbering in the thousands, have dropped to a
handful in recent years, Lithuania remains concerned that its
neighbors are violating its airspace to test Lithuania's and
NATO's technological ability and diplomatic resolve. In
discussions regarding a permanent Baltic air-policing
mission, Lithuania will stress the need for NATO assets given
its own meager air defense capabilities, highlighting the
fact that recent incursions have occurred over the Ignalina
nuclear power plant and that NATO aircraft have intercepted
suspected Russian intelligence aircraft traversing the Baltic
Sea Coast. End Summary.

--------------
Russia's Disruptive Presence
--------------


2. (C) Lithuanian government officials believe that Russian
air space violations illustrate that the GOR is unwilling to
accept the new NATO reality in the Baltics and would use any
NRC discussion on the issue to subvert it. Despite its
continued concern over Russian air incursions, Lithuania is
not yet ready to support initiatives like the proposed
NATO-Russia Council Regional Air Safety Conference (reftel
A),fearing that the forum would be used by Russia to create
a rift within the NATO alliance. The GOL does not feel it
necessary to continue to assuage unfounded Russian concerns

over the nature of the Baltic air-policing mission in
Brussels or elsewhere.


3. (C) Kestutis Jankauskas, Director of MFA's Security Policy
Department told us that the GOR would use initiatives like
the NRC Conference to "single out" the Baltic region in the
belief that NATO itself, by calling for a special conference,
believes that there are differences between its new Baltic
members and its Western European founders. NATO, he said,
affords indivisible security to its members. A Conference
focused on the Baltic region, therefore, would add no value
to the NATO-Russia relationship, and might, in fact, imply
inter-alliance instability to the GOR. Noting the recent
visit of a Russian Vienna Document inspection team (reftel B)
to the Zokniai airfield and NATO's Baltic air policing
assets, Lithuania, Jankauskas said, prefers to work through
established CSBM confidence-building instruments to mitigate
NATO-GOR tensions rather than create new fora that Russia may
exploit to imply there are problems where none exist.

-------------- --------------
The History of Violations of Lithuanian Air Space
-------------- --------------


4. (SBU) There have been nearly 5,500 recorded violations of
Lithuania's airspace by both fixed wing and rotor aircraft
since January 1, 1992. Though aircraft from Latvia (on three
occasions),the United States (once; a BE-20 flying without
proper authorization July 28, 2000),and Sweden (once) have
violated Lithuania's airspace, only aircraft from Russia or
Belarus have done so since June 2001.

--------------
Summary of Violations of Lithuania's Airspace
--------------


5. (SBU) The Government of Lithuania recorded the following
number of violations of its air space:

--1992 2,557 violations
--1993 2,621 violations
--1994 133 violations
--1995 59 violations
--1996 14 violations
--1997 10 violations
--1998 5 violations
--1999 4 violations
--2000 8 violations
--2001 8 violations
--2002 4 violations
--2003 3 violations
--2004 5 violations


6. (SBU) The GOL argues that, in the mid-late 1990s,
Lithuania's participation in transatlantic security programs
and anticipated membership in NATO were key to discouraging
Russian air incursions. They point in particular to
Lithuania's joining the PfP in January 1994 to explain the
sudden drop of airspace violations from over two thousand to
fewer than two hundred. Improvements in Lithuania's ability,
both technically and multilaterally, to detect and address
incursions into its air space, such as the development of
national air sovereignty operations and the 2001 inauguration
of the Regional Airspace Surveillance Co-ordination Center in
Karmelava, Lithuania, have also discouraged air incursions.

--------------
Belarus Also a Cause for Concern
--------------


7. (C) Though many of the most recent violations appear more
incidental than directed, as when helicopters have drifted
across Lithuania's border for under two minutes, Lithuanians
worry that Russia and Belarus undertake targeted incursions
to test Lithuania's air detection and defense capabilities.
They point in particular to two incursions, in April and June
2003, when aircraft from Belarus violated Lithuanian airspace
over the Ignalina nuclear power plant. The Ignalina plant,
four miles from the Belarusian border, is Lithuania's only
area of restricted airspace, and is only modestly protected
against threats from the air by a single platoon of six
Swedish-made BOFORS L-70 40mm air defense guns.

--------------
Surveillance Aircraft Concerns
--------------


8. (C) Lithuania is concerned about surveillance aircraft
moving between Kaliningrad and Russia. A Russian IL-18
traveling to Kaliningrad violated Lithuanian airspace in
November 2003. Russia flies modified IL-18 electronic
surveillance planes (IL-20 or COOT-A) along the Baltic Sea
Coast. Lithuanian interlocutors note that one of the few
times NATO's planes scrambled to address a Baltic airspace
violation since the Baltic air-policing mission began in
March was in response to a likely IL-20 traversing Estonian
airspace without a flight plan, in June. The Russian crew,
interlocutors stress, only submitted a flight plan after
Belgian F-16s had intercepted their aircraft.

--------------
Limited Domestic Air Defense Assets
--------------


9. (C) Lithuania lacks the air assets to police and defend
its airspace against air incursions on their own. The
country's meager national air assets, namely a pair of L-39
Albatross airframes and small helicopter fleet are not
night-capable and, therefore, can provide air defense,
protect against renegade attack, and assist in civil air
emergencies only during daylight.

--------------
Russian Pressure?
--------------


10. (C) Russia seems determined, say interlocutors, to play a
game of cat and mouse with Lithuania to test the
technological ability and diplomatic resolve of the GOL to
address violations of its airspace. Even in instances where
Russian aircraft are tracked, and air space violations
recorded, say interlocutors, the GOR refutes GOL evidence
with blanket denials and technical doubletalk. Russian
actions lend little credence to the belief that the GOR will
ever be more than a disruptive presence in the region.


11. (C) Darius Mereckis of MFA's NATO Division shared with us
an official GOR reply to a GOL query about two airspace
violations near the Kaliningrad border by Russian military
aircraft in May. Russia's diplomatic note denied that any of
its aircraft "conducted flights in the airspace of the
Kaliningrad Oblast" at the time of the incident. In response
to Lithuanian electronic evidence that a Russian AN-26
violated Lithuanian airspace over the Baltic Sea, Russia
denied the violation, and said the flight was conducted in
accordance with its request and corresponding permit to
utilize established air transit routes over Latvia.

--------------
EU Parallels
--------------


12. (C) Lithuanians also claim Russians play a similar game
with their relations with the EU, by regularly claiming in EU
fora that Lithuania is attempting to disrupt Russian
transport links to the Kaliningrad exclave - though objective
observers regularly praise the Lithuanian government for
scrupulous implementation of the EU-Russia-Lithuanian
agreement regulating such transportation.

--------------
Comment
--------------


13. (C) Violations of Lithuania's airspace are rare.
Nevertheless, in discussions of a permanent Baltic air
policing solution, the GOL will likely play up perceived
targeted Russian or Belarusian threats to Lithuania's
security; but they would also concede that they don't expect
a Soviet air invasion. Such a response are perhaps only
natural in response to what the Lithuanians perceive
nationalist hostility towards Baltic NATO membership
emanating from Russia. Lithuania is ready to play a
constructive role within European security mechanisms such as
the Vienna Document - as it evidenced in successfully hosting
a Russian inspection this week. But it will unlikely agree
to putting Baltic security concerns on the agenda of any NATO
interaction with Russia until they believe Russia takes
obvious steps to back off from what the Lithuanians believe
aim to disrupt relations within NATO.
MULL