B. The area was part of Germany at the start of World War II, when Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and divided up neighboring Poland in 1939. After the Nazi-Soviet pact fell apart, the nations went to war and Soviet forces conquered the area in 1944. Kaliningrad was left isolated from the rest of Russia after Lithuania and Belarus became independent in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Q: As a member of the EU, Lithuania stopped trains carrying sanctioned goods – such as cement, coal and metals – between the Russian heartland and Kaliningrad. Kaliningrad is important to Russia because its Balkan Seaport remains ice free, unlike its most populous port city ...

A. Murmansk

B. Odessa

C. Saint Petersburg

D. Vladivostok

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C. Russia’s second-largest city, Saint Petersburg, is situated on the Neva River, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. Goods sanctioned by the EU could be shipped by sea from Saint Petersburg to Kaliningrad, which is the home port of the Russia Navy’s Baltic Fleet. Odessa is a Black Sea port in Ukraine which has been targeted by invading Russian forces.

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Q: Lithuania is a member of the EU and the NATO military alliance, like its northern neighbor ...

A. Latvia

B. Poland

C. Norway

D. Sweden

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A. Lithuania borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to the southwest. The three small Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all joined NATO and the EU after they became the first Soviet-occupied states to declare independence.

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Q: Sweden and what other EU nation with a long history of neutrality recently asked to join NATO because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which also gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

A. Austria

B. Cyprus

C. Finland

D. Ireland

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C. Sweden and its neighbor Finland maintained their neutrality throughout the Cold War rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union. But, concern over the invasion of Ukraine led them to seek to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which was formed to counter Soviet power after World War II. Finland has a 830-mile land border with Russia.

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