News

“Finland is a close neighbour of Lithuania, a partner of the EU and a NATO ally for exactly a year – we are interested in further developing bilateral and regional cooperation, especially in regional security and defence, energy security, critical infrastructure protection and resilience, economic and other areas. Both global and regional geopolitical challenges – Russia’s war against Ukraine and hybrid threats, have further brought the Baltic and Nordic states closer together, so we will continue to work together to strengthen the prospects for bilateral and regional cooperation,” said Lithuania’s Foreign Minister.

Landsbergis also emphasised that Ukraine’s victory was a priority for all of us. Today, the most important task is to join all efforts to convince and mobilise additional efforts of other allies to help Ukraine defeat Russia by continuing to supply and increase military, economic, humanitarian, and diplomatic support to Ukraine, helping it integrate into the EU and NATO families as soon as possible.

“Lithuania, Finland and other Baltic and Nordic states are among the leading supporters of Ukraine. So, we must set an example of how to encourage other European partners to contribute more significantly to Ukraine’s victory. Any other scenario than Ukraine’s victory would have serious consequences for European security, especially for the Baltic Sea region,” Landsbergis said.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania also emphasised the need to tighten sanctions further against the aggressor Russia and its accomplice Belarus and to unite the efforts, especially of the region’s EU border states, to combat their circumvention. Landsbergis also noted: “We have a good understanding of Finland, which is currently experiencing Russia’s attempts to instrumentalise third-country migrants. What Lithuania, Latvia and Poland have experienced in the past is now repeated by Russia concerning Finland. We need to maintain vigilance and be prepared for a determined joint response if the flows of illegal migrants increase sharply.

The Foreign Ministers also discussed the situation in the Middle East. “We condemn Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel. It is necessary to avoid further escalation and its spread in the Middle East region - this would have catastrophic consequences for that region but also for Ukraine, which is defending itself from Russian aggression. We must immediately tighten sanctions against Iran for its regional destabilising behaviour and support for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,” said Landsbergis.