Lithuania–Russia border

A line from Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles set East Prussia’s new northeastern boundary along the Niemen (Memel) river downstream, then its Skierwieth arm to the Curonian Lagoon, then across the lagoon and the Curonian Spit about 4 km southwest of the village of Nidden (Nida).^[2] In Article 99 Germany gave up the land north of that line, the Memel territory, to the Allied powers.^[2]

The port of Memel, now Klaipėda, had been Prussian and had never belonged to the historic Lithuanian state. The city was largely German, but the countryside around it was largely Lithuanian. Lithuania took over the territory in January 1923, and an agreement with the Allies the next year made it an autonomous part of Lithuania.^[6] On 21 March 1939 Lithuania gave in to a German ultimatum and ceded the port to Germany.^[6]

“…then the principal channel of navigation of the Niemen (Memel) downstream, then the Skierwieth arm of the delta to the Kurisches Haff; thence a straight line to the point where the eastern shore of the Kurische Nehrung meets the administrative boundary about 4 kilometres south-west of Nidden…”^[2]

From Soviet line to state border

The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in June 1940 and declared it a Soviet republic that August.^[7] In 1945 the Potsdam agreement gave the Soviet Union the northern half of German East Prussia, which became the Kaliningrad region of Soviet Russia.^[8] Klaipėda went to Soviet Lithuania, though Lithuania’s later president Algirdas Brazauskas said in 1990 that no official documents were ever drawn up for Klaipėda’s transfer to Lithuania after the war.^[4]

Lithuania restored its independence in 1990, and Russia signed a treaty on interstate relations with it on 29 July 1991.^[9] The two countries signed a border treaty in Moscow on 24 October 1997, together with a treaty dividing their economic zones in the Baltic Sea.^[5][4] Russia held off ratifying them until the question of transit to Kaliningrad across Lithuania, soon to be EU and Schengen territory, was settled, and they entered into force in August 2003.^[9][4]

River, fence and barriers

About 109 km of the border runs along rivers. In 2017 Lithuania built a fence of more than 40 km on the dry-land stretches to curb smuggling and illegal migration.^[1]

In 2024 Lithuania began adding permanent anti-vehicle obstacles. On the Queen Louise Bridge over the Nemunas, between Lithuania’s Panemunė and Russia’s Sovetsk, the army planned 80 “dragon’s teeth” and seven hedgehogs. Lithuania’s chief of defence described the border as three parts: dry land, the Nemunas river and the Curonian Spit.^[3]