Putin’s Kaliningrad visit wasn’t a threat to Nato

President visits part of his own country. Shock. Vladimir Putin’s visit yesterday to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, perched precariously on the other side of the Baltic states, was not, as some overheated commentary has claimed, a threat to Nato. Rather, it was a sign of his renewed need to campaign domestically.

Kaliningrad, once East Prussian Königsberg, is a territory a little larger than Northern Ireland that was annexed by the Soviets at the end of the second world war and subject to an intensive period of industrialisation, militarisation and colonisation. More than three quarters of the population are now ethnic Russians, and although a handful of activists claim there is strong support for independence (last year, the self-proclaimed Free Nations of Post-Russia Forum held a methodologically-dubious internet poll which they claimed showed 72 per cent in favour), there is no sign of any particular disaffection.