ABSTRACT
Kaliningrad is a completely detached small administrative region or oblast of Russia. At the Potsdam Conference of 17 August 1945, it was transferred to the Soviet Union and in 1946 its name was changed from Knigsberg to Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad's port became the centre of the Soviet Baltic Fleet operations and, as a result, the whole area was declared a military zone. Kaliningrad has the headquarters of the Baltic Fleet and the 11th Independent Guards Army, but it is an ice-free port and has been a frontline state with NATO since the accession of Poland in 1999. It has a major receiving area for redundant former Soviet military personnel and the oblast has become the focus for illegal arms transactions. The major concern must focus on the future of the oblast as a detached part of the Russian Federation, as an independent state or as a territory linked in some way with Lithuania or Poland, or both.
