Moscow has taken note of the editorial "The Russian Problem" of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten of July 30, which contains a number of fabrications concerning the situation in the Kaliningrad oblast, and offers "recipes" of a solution to the problem arising in connection with the enlargement of the European Union.

The editorial's authors assert that the Russians have created this problem for Europe by converting the once prosperous Prussian Koenigsberg into a "wretched den of thieves," and suggest as a solution to the problem that the Russians "get out to Russia," and that "the oblast be turned over to the EU under the joint administration of Poland, Lithuania and, perhaps, Germany."

In fact, they talk about a revision of the results of the Second World War and a recarving of the postwar borders; that is, a change of the entire postwar arrangement which has been the basis of stability on the continent for more than half a century. For Russia this is particularly sensitive issue, because the land of Kaliningrad freed from the nazis is sprinkled with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers.

The article bears an obviously provocative character. That its appearance virtually coincides with the start of Denmark's EU presidency has not escaped our attention. We expect that official Copenhagen will find it possible to express its attitude to the recipes offered by Jyllands-Posten for a solution to the problems of the Kaliningrad oblast.