Russian officials deleted a draft decree, on Wednesday, that would've shifted the borders of the Baltic Sea after several NATO member states condemned the apparent expansion of Russia's maritime territory.
Had the Russians moved forward with the drafted boundaries, they would have encroached on territories belonging to Finland and Lithuania. The Russian Defense Ministry initially drafted the decree, according to the Kyiv Independent.
The draft argued that existing maritime borders, established while the USSR was disintegrating in the 1980s, "do not fully correspond to the current geographic situation."
By the following day, the proposal had been deleted from the Russian government's website. The webpage now reads "The draft is deleted."
Baltic officials were quick to criticize what would've constituted a Russian incursion on their internationally recognized territory.
"Another Russian hybrid operation is underway, this time attempting to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about their intentions in the Baltic Sea," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. "This is an obvious escalation against NATO and the EU, and must be met with an appropriately firm response."
Finnish President Alexander Stubb wrote that Moscow did not contact Helsinki regarding the proposed changes.
"The political leadership is monitoring the situation closely," he wrote before the draft was removed. "Finland acts as always: calmly and based on facts."
