Rail Baltica: one way road
The Baltic “project of the century”, which had been in a sleeping state for most of its existence, has begun to awaken in recent years. As is well known, the Baltic States, from the “damned colonial past,” have gained industry, seaports, fishing fleets and broadband railways, differing in width from most EU countries, where they use a narrower railway track. What causes the need to rearrange the cars at the border, that is, the replacement of the carriages of railway cars to ensure uninterrupted railway communication on the railways with Russian and European gauge.
There is nothing surprising that from the very beginning “small but proud” limitrofs dreamed about the widespread introduction of European standards. However, it was obvious that it was simply impossible to remake all the railway tracks in accordance with them: there would not be enough funds. In addition, such a “modernization” of transport arteries would seriously complicate the Russian and Belarusian transit, which constituted an important source of income for the Balts (in Estonia quite recently it was more than 10 percent of the national budget).
Therefore, we had to limit ourselves to the project of creating a transport umbilical cord connecting mother Europe and the Baltic embryo connecting the Baltic countries and the countries of Central Europe along the route Berlin-Poznan-Warsaw-Kaunas-Riga-Tallinn with possible access to Helsinki (through a tunnel under the Baltic Sea). 7 November 2001, the ministers of the three Baltic countries signed an agreement to create a railway. But for sixteen years this was the only advance in the Rail Baltica project, except for endless negotiations and approvals.
The situation changed two years ago when the agreement on the construction of Rail Baltica was signed. This was accomplished on January 31 2017 at a meeting of the Baltic Prime Ministers in Tallinn in the presence of European Council President Donald Tusk. At about the same time, the next possible cost of the project was determined - 5,8 billion euros.
It is noteworthy that in 2000, it was assumed that the total cost of the highway will be 2,65 billion euros. Later, the auditing company Pricewaterhouse Coopers recalculated. The price tag has almost doubled - to 4,3 billion euros. As we can see, this figure has not turned out to be the final one; recalculations of the final cost of Rail Baltica continue to this day. Already there are suggestions that, taking into account payments of compensation to owners of land on which Rail Baltica will go, it may exceed 7 billion.
As a matter of fact, the prolonged “dream” of the project does not cause much surprise, considering that its economic justification, to put it mildly, is doubtful. Three years ago, the mayor of Ventspils and the chairman of the Latvian Transit Business Association, Aivars Lembergs, called Rail Baltica "a monster that after construction will have nothing to do with it."
A little earlier, the head of the Estonian Railways Trade Union, Oleg Chubarov, described the project as “an imprudent undertaking with unpredictable negative financial consequences for Estonia, duplicating existing lines of communication”.
Even before the signing of the agreement, experts argued that the Baltic republics simply did not have the necessary number of potential passengers for daily trips to Germany through Poland in the right quantities. Moreover, the cost of railway tickets on the new highway will be significantly higher than on intercity buses, plying in similar directions.
Meanwhile, the main cargo flows, still going through the territory of the Baltic States (their volumes are decreasing every year) are sent from Russia or to Russia. They move by rail with a Russian track. And the freight traffic between the Baltic States and the EU, for the sake of which everything seems to be started, is so insignificant that it can in no way justify the construction of another rail system, which, of course, requires a separate depot and funds for maintenance.
At the same time, the Rail Baltica project itself does not have the support of the population. On the contrary, there are protests. The “greens” are protesting, believing that the construction will cause irreparable damage to the environment. Rally those on whose lands should pass the road.
In Tallinn, a rally was held against the construction of the highway, after activists of the NGO “Open about Rail Baltic” published information that there was an “error” in the economic justification worth 4,1 billion euros.
In August, law enforcement agencies detained 2016, the then head of the Latvian Railway, Ugis Magonis, on charges of corruption. A very knowledgeable ex-foreign minister, Janis Jurkans, suggested this: “Today Latvia is working on the Rail Baltica project, there is a lot of money in it, who will dispose of it is an important issue. Maybe Magonis was uncomfortable, and he was eliminated. ”
The project is accompanied by disputes not only about the specific details of the future route of the route, but, what is worse, also about who will allocate contracts for certain works within the framework of the project and how. The parties quarreled and when trying to agree on the distribution of value added tax. Lithuania feared that since all orders would be fulfilled by the joint venture RB Rail, registered in Latvia, the VAT would settle in this country. Therefore, Vilnius wanted the VAT for the work carried out in Lithuania to remain with him.
So much so that the head of RB Rail Baiba Rubesa (Latvian citizen) last September made a demarche - resigned, complaining about a conflict of interest.
“I decided to resign now to share with the citizens of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania my concern that the Rail Baltica project faces a big risk due to the decisions of the supervisory board and the behavior and decisions of the beneficiary from the project,” Rubes said then.
Her place was immediately taken by the representative of Lithuania, which most irritated Baib Rubes because Vilnius was pushing the interests of the local railway company. At the same time, the company's shareholders assumed that the representative of Poland or Finland should head instead of Rubesa.
“The appointment of the Chairman of the Board of Lietuvos Geležinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways) to the supervisory board of RB Rail shows a blatant lack of knowledge of any principles of corporate governance,” Rubesa quoted the words “Free Press”.
That is, as we see, around the road, on which there is no one and nothing, and investments in which will never be repulsed, a serious tangle of intrigues with a serious criminal component began. What is it all for?
Former head of the Ministry of Transport of Latvia Ainars Shlesers said that he considers the project more political than economic.
The former Minister of Defense of Lithuania, Rasa Juknevičienė, spoke out even more definitely, saying that Rail Baltica would be of great military significance, allowing the large army contingents and equipment to be quickly deployed along a single track.
Finally, recently the successor to Baiba Rubesa, Ignas Degutis, directly said at a meeting of project participants in Tallinn that “Rail Baltica was recognized as an object of military mobility of the EU”, and therefore its political support has increased in the last two years, closer cooperation with Poland and Finland
Indeed, Rail Baltica makes it possible to significantly diversify and accelerate the delivery of weapons, using the ports of Poland and Germany, and then sending by a single railway, without wasting time changing wheels on the Polish-Lithuanian border.
At present, NATO is forced in most cases to use the same pattern of delivery of military goods: by the Baltic Sea to Riga, and then by rail further across Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia.
It is not surprising that the almost frozen project was reanimated in the conditions of anti-Russian hysteria and tension in the Baltic region. And the interest in creating a “trans-Baltic highway” increased in proportion to the increased NATO military presence in the territory of the border countries in the region.
The main and, it seems, the only goal of Rail Baltica, which is to be earned in 2026, is to ensure the rapid transfer of NATO troops to the Russian borders. This is the opinion of leading experts.
“Here, the entire construction of the railway is done only for one thing - to increase the efficiency of movement by rail to Europe. And such efficiency is most needed for the use of this railway for military transport, which may be urgently needed, ”says the portal Sputnik Latvia, the opinion of the corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences Konstantin Sokolov.
A doctor of military sciences Konstantin Sivkov asserts: “The West is consistently building up its military infrastructure in the Baltic States. There is no doubt that the railway is being built for military purposes. Rail Baltica is one of the most important elements of the military infrastructure, which is designed to ensure the transfer of troops. ”
Actually, the railway connection from the Polish border to Tallinn is still there, and it is fully capable of transferring equipment and troops, which is what happens during NATO exercises. In the light of what it would be cheaper to lay the “Russian” gauge from the borders of Lithuania to Warsaw, than to pull it from there to the capital of Estonia.
Recently, Russia's ambassador to Latvia, Yevgeny Lukyanov, explicitly stated that the military significance of the project has always been taken into account by our country.
“It has never been a secret for us that Rail Baltica is primarily a military-structural project,” said the Russian ambassador. - As you remember, since the time of the Russian Empire, the local gauge is different from the gauge in Europe. Therefore, in order to rearrange the pairs from those wagons that will carry Tanks it takes more time to defend against an aggressive Russia than just passing these wagons along an appropriate track. That is, tanks will come to you faster. ”
However, the ambassador warned that the local “highways, alas, are not German autobans”. And Leopards and other Leopolds that quickly arrived in the Baltics may get bogged down. ”
And this sarcasm is quite reasonable. According to the North Atlantic Alliance, a significant part of the bridges and roads in the Baltic States and in Poland is impassable for such tanks as the Abrams or the Challenger. This circumstance prompted the Pentagon to announce an accelerated competition for the creation of a light tank (not from scratch, but on the basis of available samples) for an East European theater. For the same purpose, the M1128 Mobile Gun System combat vehicles, a “wheeled tank” based on the Stryker BTR, were created.
However, there are others, besides the condition of the roads and bridges of the Baltic states, problems that in a sense devalue the military value of the project.
Rail Baltica is nothing more than a roadway running parallel to a potential front line, designed for maneuvering troops and transporting materiel.
However, in the conditions of modern warfare and the available means of destruction, transportation along rocky roads is very vulnerable and fraught with significant losses. Missile strike, the effect of a DRG or aviation able to paralyze the highway.
In other words, in the event of a war, many NATO members may not even reach the Russian borders via Rail Baltica.
In this connection, the words of the volunteer Marek are recalled: “If I go to the front, I will write on our teplushka:“ Three tons of fertilizer for enemy fields; Forty men or eight horses. " (Jaroslav Hasek. "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik.)
There is nothing surprising that from the very beginning “small but proud” limitrofs dreamed about the widespread introduction of European standards. However, it was obvious that it was simply impossible to remake all the railway tracks in accordance with them: there would not be enough funds. In addition, such a “modernization” of transport arteries would seriously complicate the Russian and Belarusian transit, which constituted an important source of income for the Balts (in Estonia quite recently it was more than 10 percent of the national budget).
Therefore, we had to limit ourselves to the project of creating a transport umbilical cord connecting mother Europe and the Baltic embryo connecting the Baltic countries and the countries of Central Europe along the route Berlin-Poznan-Warsaw-Kaunas-Riga-Tallinn with possible access to Helsinki (through a tunnel under the Baltic Sea). 7 November 2001, the ministers of the three Baltic countries signed an agreement to create a railway. But for sixteen years this was the only advance in the Rail Baltica project, except for endless negotiations and approvals.
The situation changed two years ago when the agreement on the construction of Rail Baltica was signed. This was accomplished on January 31 2017 at a meeting of the Baltic Prime Ministers in Tallinn in the presence of European Council President Donald Tusk. At about the same time, the next possible cost of the project was determined - 5,8 billion euros.
It is noteworthy that in 2000, it was assumed that the total cost of the highway will be 2,65 billion euros. Later, the auditing company Pricewaterhouse Coopers recalculated. The price tag has almost doubled - to 4,3 billion euros. As we can see, this figure has not turned out to be the final one; recalculations of the final cost of Rail Baltica continue to this day. Already there are suggestions that, taking into account payments of compensation to owners of land on which Rail Baltica will go, it may exceed 7 billion.
As a matter of fact, the prolonged “dream” of the project does not cause much surprise, considering that its economic justification, to put it mildly, is doubtful. Three years ago, the mayor of Ventspils and the chairman of the Latvian Transit Business Association, Aivars Lembergs, called Rail Baltica "a monster that after construction will have nothing to do with it."
A little earlier, the head of the Estonian Railways Trade Union, Oleg Chubarov, described the project as “an imprudent undertaking with unpredictable negative financial consequences for Estonia, duplicating existing lines of communication”.
Even before the signing of the agreement, experts argued that the Baltic republics simply did not have the necessary number of potential passengers for daily trips to Germany through Poland in the right quantities. Moreover, the cost of railway tickets on the new highway will be significantly higher than on intercity buses, plying in similar directions.
Meanwhile, the main cargo flows, still going through the territory of the Baltic States (their volumes are decreasing every year) are sent from Russia or to Russia. They move by rail with a Russian track. And the freight traffic between the Baltic States and the EU, for the sake of which everything seems to be started, is so insignificant that it can in no way justify the construction of another rail system, which, of course, requires a separate depot and funds for maintenance.
At the same time, the Rail Baltica project itself does not have the support of the population. On the contrary, there are protests. The “greens” are protesting, believing that the construction will cause irreparable damage to the environment. Rally those on whose lands should pass the road.
In Tallinn, a rally was held against the construction of the highway, after activists of the NGO “Open about Rail Baltic” published information that there was an “error” in the economic justification worth 4,1 billion euros.
In August, law enforcement agencies detained 2016, the then head of the Latvian Railway, Ugis Magonis, on charges of corruption. A very knowledgeable ex-foreign minister, Janis Jurkans, suggested this: “Today Latvia is working on the Rail Baltica project, there is a lot of money in it, who will dispose of it is an important issue. Maybe Magonis was uncomfortable, and he was eliminated. ”
The project is accompanied by disputes not only about the specific details of the future route of the route, but, what is worse, also about who will allocate contracts for certain works within the framework of the project and how. The parties quarreled and when trying to agree on the distribution of value added tax. Lithuania feared that since all orders would be fulfilled by the joint venture RB Rail, registered in Latvia, the VAT would settle in this country. Therefore, Vilnius wanted the VAT for the work carried out in Lithuania to remain with him.
So much so that the head of RB Rail Baiba Rubesa (Latvian citizen) last September made a demarche - resigned, complaining about a conflict of interest.
“I decided to resign now to share with the citizens of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania my concern that the Rail Baltica project faces a big risk due to the decisions of the supervisory board and the behavior and decisions of the beneficiary from the project,” Rubes said then.
Her place was immediately taken by the representative of Lithuania, which most irritated Baib Rubes because Vilnius was pushing the interests of the local railway company. At the same time, the company's shareholders assumed that the representative of Poland or Finland should head instead of Rubesa.
“The appointment of the Chairman of the Board of Lietuvos Geležinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways) to the supervisory board of RB Rail shows a blatant lack of knowledge of any principles of corporate governance,” Rubesa quoted the words “Free Press”.
That is, as we see, around the road, on which there is no one and nothing, and investments in which will never be repulsed, a serious tangle of intrigues with a serious criminal component began. What is it all for?
Former head of the Ministry of Transport of Latvia Ainars Shlesers said that he considers the project more political than economic.
The former Minister of Defense of Lithuania, Rasa Juknevičienė, spoke out even more definitely, saying that Rail Baltica would be of great military significance, allowing the large army contingents and equipment to be quickly deployed along a single track.
Finally, recently the successor to Baiba Rubesa, Ignas Degutis, directly said at a meeting of project participants in Tallinn that “Rail Baltica was recognized as an object of military mobility of the EU”, and therefore its political support has increased in the last two years, closer cooperation with Poland and Finland
Indeed, Rail Baltica makes it possible to significantly diversify and accelerate the delivery of weapons, using the ports of Poland and Germany, and then sending by a single railway, without wasting time changing wheels on the Polish-Lithuanian border.
At present, NATO is forced in most cases to use the same pattern of delivery of military goods: by the Baltic Sea to Riga, and then by rail further across Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia.
It is not surprising that the almost frozen project was reanimated in the conditions of anti-Russian hysteria and tension in the Baltic region. And the interest in creating a “trans-Baltic highway” increased in proportion to the increased NATO military presence in the territory of the border countries in the region.
The main and, it seems, the only goal of Rail Baltica, which is to be earned in 2026, is to ensure the rapid transfer of NATO troops to the Russian borders. This is the opinion of leading experts.
“Here, the entire construction of the railway is done only for one thing - to increase the efficiency of movement by rail to Europe. And such efficiency is most needed for the use of this railway for military transport, which may be urgently needed, ”says the portal Sputnik Latvia, the opinion of the corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences Konstantin Sokolov.
A doctor of military sciences Konstantin Sivkov asserts: “The West is consistently building up its military infrastructure in the Baltic States. There is no doubt that the railway is being built for military purposes. Rail Baltica is one of the most important elements of the military infrastructure, which is designed to ensure the transfer of troops. ”
Actually, the railway connection from the Polish border to Tallinn is still there, and it is fully capable of transferring equipment and troops, which is what happens during NATO exercises. In the light of what it would be cheaper to lay the “Russian” gauge from the borders of Lithuania to Warsaw, than to pull it from there to the capital of Estonia.
Recently, Russia's ambassador to Latvia, Yevgeny Lukyanov, explicitly stated that the military significance of the project has always been taken into account by our country.
“It has never been a secret for us that Rail Baltica is primarily a military-structural project,” said the Russian ambassador. - As you remember, since the time of the Russian Empire, the local gauge is different from the gauge in Europe. Therefore, in order to rearrange the pairs from those wagons that will carry Tanks it takes more time to defend against an aggressive Russia than just passing these wagons along an appropriate track. That is, tanks will come to you faster. ”
However, the ambassador warned that the local “highways, alas, are not German autobans”. And Leopards and other Leopolds that quickly arrived in the Baltics may get bogged down. ”
And this sarcasm is quite reasonable. According to the North Atlantic Alliance, a significant part of the bridges and roads in the Baltic States and in Poland is impassable for such tanks as the Abrams or the Challenger. This circumstance prompted the Pentagon to announce an accelerated competition for the creation of a light tank (not from scratch, but on the basis of available samples) for an East European theater. For the same purpose, the M1128 Mobile Gun System combat vehicles, a “wheeled tank” based on the Stryker BTR, were created.
However, there are others, besides the condition of the roads and bridges of the Baltic states, problems that in a sense devalue the military value of the project.
Rail Baltica is nothing more than a roadway running parallel to a potential front line, designed for maneuvering troops and transporting materiel.
However, in the conditions of modern warfare and the available means of destruction, transportation along rocky roads is very vulnerable and fraught with significant losses. Missile strike, the effect of a DRG or aviation able to paralyze the highway.
In other words, in the event of a war, many NATO members may not even reach the Russian borders via Rail Baltica.
In this connection, the words of the volunteer Marek are recalled: “If I go to the front, I will write on our teplushka:“ Three tons of fertilizer for enemy fields; Forty men or eight horses. " (Jaroslav Hasek. "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik.)
Information