Трансмиссия финансового заражения в странах Балтийского региона в период энергетического кризиса 2021—2022 годов

The article presents an analysis of contemporary British military-political strategy in the Baltic region. Since 2014, there has been a notable increase in British presence in the area, leading to multiple security risks for Russia, particularly since 2022. This is due to the fact that the UK has increasingly linked its national security threats to Russia’s policy towards Ukraine, as well as in the Black Sea and Baltic regions. By focusing on Russia’s positions in the Baltic and Black Sea regions, the UK has defined its security priorities, explicitly connecting them to countering “threats from Russia and preventing Russia from gaining strategic advantages as a result of the situation in Ukraine,” as clearly stated in the 2023 Security Review. It is no coincidence that British military strategists have started emphasizing the interconnectedness of the Baltic and Black Sea regions, as well as the Baltic and Arctic regions, highlighting the necessity of ensuring security in one part by addressing security challenges in others —primarily by limiting Russia’s influence. Through an analysis of key British security documents within the framework of the regional security complex theory, the author demonstrates how the Baltic Sea region has become a crucial link for British military strategists, connecting the Far North and Eastern Europe. The aim of the article is to determine how the UK’s security interests are connected to and pursued through its interactions with the Baltic Sea region countries. To achieve this, the following research objectives have been set: to analyse the conceptual and strategic goals of the UK in the field of security and the implementation of its national interests; to outline the role and significance of the Baltic Sea region within the UK’s broader international security strategy; and to identify specific tactical approaches employed by the UK to advance its national interests through cooperation with NATO countries in the region.

Municipal waste management is a matter of great relevance and concern to countries in the Baltic Sea region. At present, the region possesses great disparities regarding the ways it handles and processes waste, meaning there are some countries which recover most of the waste they produce, whilst a number of other nations are lagging behind. Such disparity needs to be addressed in order to accommodate a more sustainable solution to waste management issues. This study discusses the extent to which countries in the Baltic Sea Region handle municipal waste management issues and outlines some of the work undertaken as part of the project RECO Baltic 21 Tech, partly funded by the Interreg VB (Baltic Sea) Programme. The study outlines the current state of affairs within the field of waste management in the Baltic region and, by means of some examples of good practice, documents a selection of the ongoing initiatives in this field before finally outlining the results of the project. Furthermore, it also describes some of the actions needed in order to foster more sustainable waste management practices in Baltic Sea region countries.

The book examines the security puzzles posed by the remaining legacies of dominance and conflict in the Baltic Sea region as governments seek to integrate the three Baltic sates in a more stable system of cooperative security.

Agricultural nature management is one of the most ancient though dynamic branches of economy The author considers the development of the agricultural nature management systems of the Baltic Sea countries through the methods of historical and geographical studies and calculates the rates of change in the areas of cultivated land and the intensity of their use. The balanced regional model of nature management is based on the conjugate analysis of an array of statistical data for the period from 1909–13 to 2014–16. The method of process modeling for agricultural production development made it possible to identify key factors affecting the dynamics of the nature use of the Baltic sea region as a whole and its particular countries. The general dynamics tendency of agricultural nature management is seen as simultaneous compression of the areas of cultivated land and the growth of crop yields, while each of the Baltic sea countries has individual patterns of these processes. In accordance with the trajectories of agricultural development, the countries of the Baltic region are divided into three subregions. In the northern subregion, which includes Finland Sweden, and the Leningrad Region, agriculture has played an additional role in the nature management system over the past hundred years. In the southern subregion (Poland, Denmark, and Germany), agriculture is the leading type of nature management, but its role has been steadily falling throughout the period of research. In the southeastern part of the Baltic region (the Baltic countries and the Kaliningrad region) the agricultural nature management is gradually recovering after the 90s crisis and its role in the environmental management system of the subregion is increasing.

The article uses the methodology of geopolitics analysis to identify the basic characteristics of NATO’s current policy towards Latvia and the rest of the Baltic Sea countries. This region with the collapse of the former Soviet Union seemed to be one of the most stable in terms of military security. However, at present, especially after the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine and the subsequent Russian aggression against our country, there is a noticeable increase in general tensions in the Baltics between NATO states and the Russian Federation and its allies. A study on the example of Latvia, devoted to the development of the military-political situation in the region, gives grounds to conclude that the current increase in the military presence in the Baltics is due to the need to strengthen the protection of the Baltic States from the Russian threat. The latter does not rule out the possibility of further NATO expansion not only to the East but also to the North at the expense of Sweden and Finland. Modern events in the Baltic region can be characterized as part of the next stage of the positional game on the world “chessboard”, where today the winning situation for the Anglo-Saxon strategy is obvious. At the same time, Russia’s geopolitical interests in the Baltic area, including Latvia, have remained virtually unchanged. The western vector of the republic’s development only strengthened Moscow’s attention through deeper and timely monitoring and analysis of the situation in its western neighbors in order to prevent the final and irreversible exit of the Baltic countries from the sphere of Russian influence. The article is intended to help Ukraine to understand and study the unique experience of the transition of a certain post-Soviet country from one political state to another, which is needed not so much for history, but for the purpose of developing modern political and diplomatic methods of cooperation with the leadership of Latvia, as well as the practical application of its experience in its activities on the path of Euro-Atlantic integration. The focus of NATO and, first of all, the United States, on strengthening its presence in the Baltic Sea region is capable of influencing the relations between the Baltic countries that have developed as a result of many years of cooperation. The emphasis on the military component clearly outlines the differences in approaches between NATO member states (Denmark, Poland, Germany, the Baltic countries and Norway), neutral states (Sweden, Finland) and the CSTO allies (Russia and Belarus).

This article identifies the objective conditions of the conflict between the interests of development and those of environmental security. The latter are given added urgency when, within the same ecological unit, one country needs to develop and another to protect its environmental interests. The borders of the countries and regions, the economies of which affect the safety of Russia’s interests in the Baltic, do not coincide with the boundaries of the ecosystems. This calls for a study of the legal protection of Russia’s environmental interests in the Baltic Sea region. There is no legal mechanism for ensuring a balance between the interests of development and those of environmental security of the countries that have shorelines along the Baltic Sea. Thus, it is necessary to give a functional description of the regional model for the legal protection of the environmental interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic region. To this end, we identify the juridical content of the environmental interests of the Russian Federation. We consider the possibilities of the legal protection of the environmental interests in the national and international jurisdiction. The interests are divided into two groups respectively. We reveal the essence of the environmental interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic Sea region. We analyse the case of the Russian regions located within the Baltic Sea catchment area to test an approach to identifying the region’s boundaries. This approach may be used in modelling the regional level of the legal protection of Russia’s environmental interests in the Baltic region. We identify the environmental interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic Sea region, as well as the forms of legal protection of the country’s interests in this territory. We describe the elements of the system of the legal protection of Russia’s interests in the Baltic region and examine the functions of these elements. The result of this study is a functional description of the model of legal protection of the environmental interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic region. This model may be used to strengthen the links between the elements of the protection of the legitimate interests of the Russian Federation in the Baltic region.

The challenges of sustainable development require that everybody, every institution and every nation work towards long-term strategies in order to move away from unsustainable practices. The same line of thinking applies to all nations around the Baltic Sea. A general challenge for the Baltic Sea region is to broaden the interest of people in discussions of national approaches supporting sustainability. Finding effective instruments to support the process of sustainable development in countries in transition with an emerging and largely inexperienced entrepreneur community and economically fragile, is as important as the promotion of long-term integrated sustainability strategies in countries which have well established democracies. The knowledge of the ongoing changes and the driving social, economic and ecological factors essential for the implementation of sustainable development in countries in transition must be broadened. A special need seen in the three Baltic countries - Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia - as elsewhere in the Baltic region, is the need to avoid development patterns of « business as usual and to gain access to information and to advancements in sustainable development both in Europe and worldwide. The Baltic countries now joining the EU have to build capacity, for example by establishing teams of young researches to draw up sustainable development strategies at the national level, which are consistent with European strategies. A bottom-up flow from the grass-root level is required to change the pattern of development strategies in the Baltic countries. The Conference « Integrative Approaches Towards Sustainability, whose experiences are documented inthis book, was held on 26-29 March, 2003.

The transnational cooperation is seen as important research object especially in the light of today’s world challenges such as war in Ukraine, Covid-19, Euroscepticism, migration and others. In this context intensive cooperation among the Nordic and Baltic countries can be discovered as new normal for transnational development. The rationale of Nordic and Baltic countries cooperation is common interest in stability, security and welfare in the Baltic Sea region and beyond, and has existed for quite some time. It should be emphasized that the cooperation in the Nordic and Baltic region has overcome many challenges. Nevertheless, the idea of cooperation in this region is stronger than ever. In the light of global and regional political instability, it is crucial to maintain political dialogue, strengthen and develop cooperation between the Nordic and Baltic countries. A spread of stronger populism uncovered an existential tension of European integration processes. In response to the European-wide crisis it is the possibility for Nordic States react to emerging challenges by deepening the integration between the Nordic countries in the light of European integration processes during their critical moment. With reference to the context described above, the purpose of the research is to identify the added value of cooperation of Nordic and Baltic countries for further regional development. The tasks of the research were set as follows: 1) to identify benefits of cooperation among countries in the context of different theories and practices; 2) to analyse the cooperation of the Nordic-Baltic countries in the period from 1990 - 2020 and its implications for growth of Baltic sea region; 3)to discuss the EU macro-regional strategies and identify their added value for further regional development. Research methods: scientific literature analysis, analytical interpretations of the EU documents as well as future prognosis on cooperation in the Nordic-Baltic region.

The fundamental geopolitical changes in the Baltic Sea region after the end of the Cold War caused the United States to revise its priorities in that part of the world. The process became especially apparent in the second decade of the 21st century when the Ukraine crisis brought to light the consequences of NATO and EU enlargement to the former Warsaw Treaty allies and the Baltic States. This article shows how the US, motivated by the need to ‘contain’ Russia, was developing its overall approaches to ensuring its political leadership in the Baltic region. It demonstrates how Washington is planning to reduce the vulnerability of certain nations of the region to Russia’s military and non-military influence and what steps the US and its NATO allies have taken in this direction. It is argued that, although the Western military buildup in the Baltic Sea region and the US attempts to neutralise Russian ‘hybrid’ instruments are unable to increase substantially the defence capabilities of NATO allies in the Baltic, the security dynamics in the region are likely to turn it into an arena for a struggle between Russia and the West. Russia will benefit from seeing the Baltic region nations not as tools in the Russian-US confrontation, but as partners in regional cooperation aware of their own interests.

Twenty years have passed since the first contacts were made between Scandinavian GPs and colleagues in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Russia. Today these Baltic and Nordic colleagues are project partners in ongoing EU projects or have built up a close collaboration between their universities. One of the earliest initiatives was Forum Balticum, a research-methodological workshop, aimed to stimulate the development of primary care research [1]. In the Baltic countries, academic and clinical family medicine has advanced strongly since then [2]. However, there are huge and even growing health differences between the countries in the Baltic Sea region. While the gap in life expectancy between the countries has slowly been revised for a few countries, some striking differences are persistent. The average Swedish man will live 20 years longer than a Russian will. Russia also has the widest gap in life expectancy between men and women, [3], which, at 12.8 years, is the highest figure globally. Further, even though Russian women live much longer than Russian men, their health status is poorer for several more years than in the Nordic countries. Also for the Baltic countries, where general public health data look better than a few years ago, the difference between men and women does not seem to be converging. In Estonia and Lithuania, women live 11 years longer than men [3]. A similar picture of large and persistent, or very slowly closing differences in maternal, infant, and child mortality data, can be shown. What can be done to target these significant health disparities? Simply adding more resources would probably not do the trick. The authors have participated in many projects for developing primary health care (PHC) in the Baltic Sea region, of which ImPrim is one: ‘Improvement of public health by promotion of equitably distributed high quality primary health care systems’. ImPrim is an EU flagship project in the Baltic Sea region where 12 partners from seven countries develop strategies, and pilot new tools and education programmes. The participating countries are Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, and the Kaliningrad region of Russia. Three pillars form the work of ImPrim: (1) improving PHC funding and reimbursement; (2) enhancing PHC professional development; (3) PHC as a pillar of regional development. The first ImPrim report concludes that 20 years of reform have improved PHC systems in terms of efficiency and patient responsiveness. Also, the differences in financial resources between the countries do not explain differences in quantities of services, and not necessarily quality either. Countries with limited resources produce as many services as the more affluent countries (Figure 1), and accessibility is as good. Therefore, the potential for PHC and general health systems improvement is good, even with limited resources. Figure 1. Outpatient contacts and inpatient admissions in the Baltic Sea region countries. Out-patients contacts per person and year and in-patient care admissions per 100 000 people. One crucial development for PHC may be to strengthen the role and impact of nurses. Reimbursement systems and legal restrictions on nurses’ professional role impede the rational use of qualified staff. Networking across the Baltic on a collegial basis stimulates mutual learning and should include PHC nurses [4]. In ImPrim, nurses are trained in state-of-the-art family medicine models of comprehensive work. Nurses in all countries can have more individual responsibilities. A clinical audit is a bottom-up method of quality development [5]. Within ImPrim, Lithuanian nurses have registered over 7000 consultations in a clinical audit to acquire baseline data on workload and working conditions. Another issue is irrational use of antibiotics. In Lithuania, a project to combat antibiotic resistance resembling the Swedish STRAMA has been developed in collaboration between Klaipeda and Lund universities. Smoking and alcoholism cause great gender mortality differences in Russia and the Baltic countries [6]. Smoking is responsible for 40–60% of male mortality in Russia and the Baltic countries. A focus on how to reduce smoking would also affect the gender mortality gap. Most of our challenges need to be tackled both at the grass-roots level with changes in PHC, and on a policy level including public health policies. Therefore, ImPrim has two action levels in many of its components. The first is to tackle health care problems such as lifestyle with simple advice and motivational interviewing. The second concerns advocacy for public health awareness and national policies supporting clinical procedures.

66 This article examines cooperation in the electric energy sector in the Baltic region. The author explores the existing undersea HVDC power exchange projects. It is emphasised that cooperation in the electric energy sector is concentrated largely in the EU member states despite earlier plans to establish the Baltic energy ring, which would also include Russia and Belarus. The author stresses that one of the most acute problems for the EU today is overcoming isolation of the energy systems of the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia) from that of the major part of the EU. This task has become especially relevant after the closing of the Ignalina NPP (Lithuania), which used to be the primary energy source for the three Baltic States. The article examines key projects of the construction of new international power transmission lines in the framework of the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan (BEMIP) and the prospects of the Visaginas NPP (Lithuania) in solving energy problems of the Baltic States. The author analyses Russia’s role in the electric energy market and focuses on a possible increase of the country’s energy market share following the construction of the Baltic NPP and the export of generated electric energy to Poland, Lithuania, Germany, and Sweden. The author concludes that the prospects of Russia’s energy export to the Baltic Sea region will be determined not only by technological, economic and market factors, but rather by the general state of relations between Russia and the EU. Moreover, a lot depends on Lithuania’s decision on the construction of the Visaginas NPP, as well as the way the EU and the Baltic States solve the problem of energy supply in case the NPP project is terminated.

The Baltic region faces increasing challenges in managing industrial byproducts and wastes due to growing industrial activity and stringent environmental regulations. At the same time, the construction industry is under significant pressure to adopt sustainable practices and reduce its carbon footprint. It is therefore essential to identify and summarize opportunities for the use of industrial by-products and waste in the Baltic Sea region in order to develop sustainable building materials that are in line with circular economy principles and carbon neutrality objectives. In the Baltic Sea region, 63 % waste is coming from mining and quarrying, manufacturing, energy production, and construction and demolition. These wastes can contain compounds containing Si, Ca or Al, which are essential for the production of building materials, thus giving these wastes a chance to be recycled again. In additional, the Baltic Sea region has a wide range of industrial residues and by-products, such as glass-based, clay-based and cement-based residues and by-products. By carefully identifying the current situation and studying the characteristics of waste and by-products, it is possible to identify innovation opportunities, including the development of region-specific formulations and the optimization of processing methods, to improve the economic and environmental benefits of waste valorization. It is possible to significantly reduce industrial waste, thereby saving resources and providing cost-effective alternatives to traditional raw materials. Summarizing the current research and practical achievements, a roadmap for the development of sustainable construction practices in the Baltic region has been developed. Also, future directions for research, policy initiatives and industrial cooperation to unlock the full potential of industrial by-products for sustainable construction has been proposed.

This article considers the research and technological potential and the innovative activity in a specific region of Russia — the Kaliningrad region. The authors assess its research and technological potential, and the achieved level of innovative activity in the Kaliningrad region as prerequisites necessary for the implementation of an innovative model of economy. This work identifies the problems of the research and technological potential development of the region, as well as a low level of development of the innovative activity in the Kaliningrad region in general and compared to the Baltic Sea region states. The authors also focus on the prerequisites for the development of research and technological cooperation between the Kaliningrad region and the Baltic Sea region countries. Special attention is paid to the opportunities for the creation of innovative clusters in the Baltic region states.

There is a large theoretical capacity to store CO2 in the Palaeozoic sedimentary succession of the Baltic Basin (BB). The most prospective areas for CO2 storage within the BB border several countries such as Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Russia, and include large saline aquifers and oil and gas fields. In recent years, a significant amount of research has been completed in fields related to CCUS in some of the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) countries. The main drivers for implementation of CCUS technology in the BSR are (1) a need to decrease the high CO2 emissions of the region; (2) obligations taken under the Paris Climate Agreement and national strategies up to 2050; (3) European requirements for low-carbon and circular economy; (4) the fact that the BSR has a large potential storage capacity; (5) London Protocol (LP) Parties in October 2019 adopted a resolution to allow provisional application of an amendment to article 6 of the LP to allow sub-seabed geological formations for CO2 storage projects to be shared across national borders; (6) offshore CO2 storage is demonstrated under the North Sea; (7) a well developed natural gas pipeline system exists that can be combined with the a potential CO2 transportation network; (8) good research capacity demonstrated by institutions within the BSR; (9) CO2 injection has been already evaluated experimentally for EOR by oil companies in Lithuania and Russia with positive results. The main barriers for implementation of CCS technology in the BSR are: (1) limitations and bans within the national CCS regulations; (2) not all BSR countries are parties of the LP; (3) amendment to Article 6 of the London Protocol is implemented only by four BSR countries; (4) absence of a CO2 storage atlas of the BSR; (5) public communication and acceptance of CO2 storage options are low in most of the BSR countries; (6) relatively high costs of CCS projects; (7) low or absent national support of CCS research and pilot projects; (8) low public awareness and limited education options for CCS; (9) onshore CO2 storage in saline aquifers is not well established in Europe and not permitted in the BSR. Among positive developments in the BSR are 1) Fortum's plans to develop pilot CO2 capture plants in Sweden, Lithuania and Poland; 2) Willingness has been expressed by the government of Denmark to ratify an amendment to article 6 of the LP and to implement CCS offshore; 3) Several pilot CGS projects have been proposed in the report produced by the CGS Baltic seed project [1]. Among negative developments is a misunderstanding of the role of the EEAP (CO2 tax) in reaching carbon-free targets and banning of any CO2 injection in Lithuania since 2020.

The societal consequences of climate change are still hard to measure, mostly because it is difficult to connect the physical effects of climate change to economic processes and because future climate change and economic estimates are unpredictable. The tourism industry is one of the areas where evaluating the effects of climate change has proven to be especially challenging. The primary influencing environmental elements in the coastal waters of the Baltic Sea are expected to alter as a result of climate change. This study investigates the impact of climate change on the growth of tourism in the Baltic Sea Region, focusing on international tourism. To analyze the possible short-run and long-run impact of climate change on international tourism, a dynamic panel model is used, with data for the period 2005–2022. International tourism is measured through the inbound travel expenditure and the number of overnight visitors. The effect of climate change is captured through the variables of temperature and precipitation, with real GDP and government effectiveness as control variables. Results show a significant negative impact of climate change variables on international tourism in the Baltic Sea countries. There are relatively few studies on the impact of climate change on the tourism industry in the Baltic region; this article complements the existing literature on this very important issue.