The theme of the uniqueness of the Kaliningrad Region's geographical and geopolitical position, which opens up many opportunities for us or even entrusts us with a special mission, runs like a red thread through most discussions of our foreign-policy role. Undoubtedly, one could go on listing the myths about a Russian Europe, a region of international cooperation and Kaliningrad's many other great foreign-policy roles for a very long time, examining each one separately and thereby, as tradition has it, raising Kaliningraders' self-esteem. One could also cite examples of "active" international activity in the region, talk about foreign twin towns, about more or less successful projects carried out with financial participation from the EU or the countries of the Baltic region (remember the long-suffering cycle paths and the budgets for them that keep disappearing, or the sewage treatment plants), about the extremely rare meetings of Russian and European representatives at ministerial level in Kaliningrad, the equally rare large-scale conferences held in the region with the participation of EU representatives, and much more.
One should bear in mind, however, that this entire incomplete list could also be recited by some other region of Russia that is not so "unique" in geographical and geopolitical terms and lays no claim to a special foreign-policy mission. Nevertheless, there are some manifestations of international activity in Kaliningrad; you just have to look carefully, or you may miss them.
The place of the Kaliningrad Region in the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation
If we approach this problem seriously, we must work out what the real, rather than mythical, role of the Kaliningrad Region is in Russia's foreign-policy strategy, and whether we have any opportunities today (other than what history has given us) to be a fully fledged region of international cooperation.
To begin with, let us turn to the current Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation.
To our deep regret, it found no room for the Kaliningrad Region, not even for a single banal sentence about its special geographical and geopolitical position. In fairness, it should be noted that there is no room in it for any other regions of our country either.
This raises another question: does the "federal centre" have a strategic vision of the Kaliningrad Region's role in pursuing Russia's foreign-policy interests in the European direction, and do even the regional authorities have one? This question can be left rhetorical, since the answer is quite obvious.
Of course, someone may object that during the current geopolitical crisis the European direction of Russian foreign policy is not a priority, dialogue is impossible at present, and therefore Kaliningrad's role in this direction is not being considered. Except that Russia's current Foreign Policy Concept dates from early 2013, that is, its content was drafted at a time when relations along the Moscow–Brussels line looked fairly warm. Besides, even before 2013 we had almost twenty years for the Kaliningrad Region to become an active region of international cooperation, but it did not work out.
There are, of course, many reasons why it "did not come true", and the point is not at all that the Russia–EU dialogue is not topical now, but that the Kaliningrad Region did not play an important role in it before either. The main problem, of course, is that the "federal centre" lacks a strategic vision of our region as an unquestionably top-priority platform for building interaction with the EU.
To promote the idea of transforming the region from a periphery into an open and effective international platform, activity on the part of the regional authorities is undoubtedly needed, if not to replace the word "activity" with the word "courage". If the "federal centre" has no vision of the Kaliningrad Region's foreign-policy role, then it must be formed "locally". Apparently, this is a matter for the distant future.
The first step towards our neighbours
It would be unfair not to mention the little that has nevertheless been achieved (at least partially) in strengthening international ties. I am referring, of course, to the introduction of the local border traffic regime with neighbouring Poland. Was this project a breakthrough? Certainly: a breakthrough not only in terms of developing cross-border cooperation in the region and Russian–Polish relations, but also relations along the EU–Russia line.
It would seem that here it is: it worked! Yet only three years after the regime was introduced it became clear that the Kaliningrad Region had not drawn the maximum benefit from it, unlike the Poles, who count their profits every year and actively orient their border-area markets towards the Kaliningrad consumer. All that is left for us is to count yet another unprecedented number of Kaliningrad cars queuing to cross into Poland on "Russia Day". We must honestly admit that the region's infrastructural and administrative problems, left unsolved for years, still prevent us from making full use of local border traffic.
To these problems one can add that the Kaliningrad Region is still unable to change the persistently negative image it has acquired among its closest neighbours (not to mention that some EU countries live in carefree ignorance of Kaliningrad's existence altogether).
It is enough to open any Polish or Lithuanian newspaper: if you do come across a short item about our region, in most cases it will be about the growing number of some frightening disease in the region or about large-scale military exercises, but not about history, sights or cultural events.
Of course, someone will mention the information war that has been waged against Russia for many years. But perhaps we should look critically at what has been done over the last twenty years, or even since the introduction of local border traffic, to create a positive image of the Kaliningrad Region, at least in the neighbouring information space? Nothing. Not even attempts at "soft" influence have been made. On the other hand, quite enough money has been spent on maintaining the image of the regional authorities within the region.
One could go on for a long time listing what does not exist and has not been done. But it is much more important to understand what needs to be done for the Kaliningrad Region to be able to claim to become a fully fledged platform for international cooperation.
What is to be done?
Both we ourselves and the "federal centre" must stop perceiving our geographical and geopolitical position as a problem.
Our "problem" is an advantage. However, we should also understand that big dreams always involve titanic efforts. A unique position and an awareness of one's exceptional importance in building a dialogue between Russia and the EU are not enough on their own for the region to become a "bridge", an active international platform.
What is needed is a special foreign-policy vision, the development of strategies, the creation of institutions, instruments, levers and so on and so forth. The region has none of this yet.
Noteworthy in this context is the idea voiced by the Kaliningrad deputy Solomon Ginzburg that it would be expedient to move at least one European department of the Russian Foreign Ministry to the Kaliningrad Region*. Unfortunately, this idea was not widely discussed, apparently because people saw little sense in it, and quite wrongly so. Moving such a significant department of the Russian Foreign Ministry to our region would undoubtedly attract genuine attention to Kaliningrad, would become a marker of our foreign-policy importance to the country and would revitalize Russia–EU interaction precisely on the Kaliningrad platform.
Today, however, the problems mentioned, relating to institutions, levers and instruments for building relations, have become secondary. Without an awareness of the possibilities of using the Kaliningrad Region as an active region of international cooperation, there will be no appropriate action either. "When there is the word", there will be understanding, and then there will be the deed. And it is highly desirable that this "word" about the Kaliningrad Region should be included in Russia's next foreign-policy concept.
Of course, these arguments make it look as though Kaliningrad must wait for Moscow's "political will", without which nothing here will move off dead centre. The example of the Special Economic Zone, the "2016 problem" and everything now happening around it only confirms that this is exactly how things are: we wait for the "political will" of the centre, we wait for "new thinking" in the country's foreign policy. And the fact that nothing is changing in this matter so far is the "merit" not only of the "federal centre", which does not perceive Kaliningrad as a platform for dialogue with the EU, but also of the regional authorities, who do not shine with initiatives or with an independent, bold conceptual vision of the region's foreign-policy promotion. After all, the crisis in Russia–EU relations will pass in time, but the question of the regional authorities' lack of initiative and the indifference of the "federal centre" remains open.
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* Solomon Ginzburg put forward the idea that it would be appropriate to locate a Russian Foreign Ministry department for cooperation with the European Union in Kaliningrad in his blog on rugrad.eu.
Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.
