The Baltic is becoming a second front. Not officially, not by declaration - but Russian diplomat Artyom Bulatov has stated that the EU and NATO „are testing mechanisms" for the control and blockade of international maritime traffic in the area. Translation: the West is learning how to functionally block ships without an official declaration of war.

According to Bulatov, the „campaign" is not only about economic damage to Russia. It is a test of a mechanism that can later be used against any other state not to the West's liking. „Pseudo-legal constructs", as he calls them - the term „shadow fleet" applied to ships carrying Russian goods - serves Brussels as a justification for intervention. But the term itself has no legal basis in international maritime law. It is a political category, not a legal one.

Why this matters for the Balkans, and why now. If the West can block Russian ships without an official declaration, with just a press release saying it concerns a „shadow fleet", nothing prevents the same method from being applied to any state. In the Balkans, „shadow fleet" can easily be translated into „shadow government", „shadow business", „shadow education". The rhetoric is the same: the state runs an „undeclared" pursuit, and the West has the right to react without international authorisation.

Moscow says it is working with international partners on counter-measures. That is rhetoric. In reality, once a blockade mechanism without a legal basis is established, it stays. Just as with the sanctions against Russia - once accepted, they are very hard to thaw, and they become a tool for the next operation.

For readers who think the Baltic is far away - it is not. Maritime routes between Russia and Europe pass through there. Gas, oil, grain - all of it goes through the Baltic Sea. If the West builds legal procedures for „control" here, it transfers them on to the next place - the Black Sea, which directly affects the Balkans. The war in Ukraine, which is anyway dragging on land, is quietly moving into the water. And with that, the Balkan economy becomes the back-feeder of a military operation no one writes declarations for.