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In Vilnius, during the annual meeting of the heads of Lithuanian diplomatic missions, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, Gabrielius Landsbergis, thanked his colleagues for their unity and joint efforts to defend Lithuania's interests.

“How to convince Baghdad and Ankara that the instrumentalised migration flights to Minsk must stop? How to cooperate with other border states to enforce border control and fight sanctions evasion? How to persuade Germany to deploy its brigade in Lithuania on a permanent basis? How to oust Russia from the board of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for the first time in history? How to prevent the transport of fertilisers by Belaruskali, which funds the Lukashenko regime and abducts Ukrainian children, through Lithuania? How to achieve a more ambitious, unified voice from the Nordic-Baltic countries, a Lithuania’s values-based inner circle?” Minister Landsbergis listed the challenges of recent years.

Minister Landsbergis underlined that, in an unstable international environment, Lithuania's national security, which is inseparably linked to Ukraine’s victory over Russian aggression, is an absolute foreign policy priority.

"Should Ukraine fall or be forced to sign an imposed peace agreement, it would be a defeat for us all. The Kremlin would then immediately begin a countdown to a new attack, potentially targeting NATO’s eastern flank, especially our region. I refrain from speculating on how much time we have, but we cannot rely on the strategic assumption that Russia will surrender, nor can we expect Ukraine to indefinitely fend off Russia without adequate Western military support.  I do not rule out the possibility that the next two to four years will be the most dangerous,” the head of Lithuania's diplomacy said.

According to Landsbergis, today Lithuania is a voice of conscience which urges the world community to stand with Ukraine and calls on its closest allies to take the necessary actions, as this is also the guarantee of Lithuania’s survival.

The head of Lithuania’s diplomacy urged the diplomatic service to dare to be inconvenient - to admit that conventional formats have not worked in wartime, to criticise international organisations if they continue to act as if there was no war on the European continent.

"We cannot turn a blind eye when, against the backdrop of a bombed-out children’s hospital in Kyiv, the Russian ambassador chairs a UN Security Council meeting and offers “Chicken Kievs” to the delegates of countries supporting Ukraine. How would we feel if our pleas for national survival were met with conformist silence? Let us ask ourselves if toothless and self-absorbed multilateralism is in our interest amidst such events?” Landsbergis noted.

The Minister stressed the growing partnership with the Indo-Pacific region and the need to form alliances with like-minded countries, in particular Estonia, Latvia and Poland which face the same threats, the Nordic and Baltic countries which are bound by geography and shared values, the nucleus of Europe - Germany and France - as well as Lithuania’s paramount and indispensable security guarantor, the US.

"Despite the US election outcomes, the aim of our diplomats will be to prove that Lithuania plays a pivotal role in the transatlantic link to Europe and that Washington needs a secure Lithuania in this geostrategically important location. We also need to understand that partnerships need to be mutually beneficial, therefore as Washington shifts its focus toward the Indo-Pacific, we must seek niches for cooperation," Landsbergis said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also addressed Lithuanian diplomats via a live video message.

The meeting of the heads of Lithuania’s diplomatic missions and consular posts is organised annually to assess foreign policy achievements and to discuss the primary priorities and objectives of the diplomatic service.

Lithuania currently has 44 embassies, 10 consulates, 7 representations in international organizations, a representative office in Palestine, and, in Skopje, an office of the Embassy in Croatia.

Read the Minister's full speech here.