Suwałki Gap

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The Suwałki Gap, also known as the Suwałki corridor ([suˈvawkʲi] ), is a sparsely populated area around the border between Lithuania and Poland, and centres on the shortest path between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast on the Polish side of the border. Named after the Polish town of Suwałki, this choke point has become of great strategic and military importance since Poland and the Baltic states joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The border between Poland and Lithuania in the area of the Suwałki Gap was formed after the Suwałki Agreement of 1920, but it carried little importance in the interwar period as at the time, the Polish lands stretched farther northeast. During the Cold War, Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union and communist Poland was a member of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact alliance. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact hardened borders that cut through the shortest land route between Kaliningrad (Russian territory isolated...

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