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Snow Meeting, a traditional informal discussion club, organised by the Foreign Ministry of Lithuania since 2008, will be held on 15-16 January in Trakai and Vilnius.

The participants will debate on how to protect Western society and values from Russia’s aggressive efforts to redraw the map of Europe, how to set up the relationship between the West and Russia, how to help Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and other countries to overcome Russia’s pressure and to continue pursuing Euro-Atlantic integration.

The meeting will be attended by international security experts from analytical and research centres and honoured by Urban Ahlin, the Speaker of the Swedish Riksdag, Edgars Rinkēvičs Foreign Minister of Latvia, Keit Pentus-Rosimannus  Foreign Minister of Estonia, and Miroslav Lajčák Foreign Minister of Slovakia, as well as representatives of the US Department of State and the administration of the President, NATO Deputy Secretary General, officials of the EU and NATO member states. The event that has gained international recognition is expected to bring together more than 60 well-known foreign and Lithuanian politicians, officials and experts.

On 15-16 January, Lithuania’s Foreign Ministry, for the second time, in cooperation with the Eastern European Studies’ Centre is organising the Vilnius Intellectuals Forum.  The first Vilnius Intellectuals Forum was held in 2014. The forum aims to develop a dialogue with representatives of the Russian civil society. It will be attended by almost 70 participants, including Mikhail Kasyanov, former Russian Prime Minister, such Russian academics and researchers as Lilia Shevtsova, Andrey Piontkovski, Andrey Ilarionov, Andrei Zubov, as well as journalists and public figures. On Friday,  16 January  a joint discussion of the participants of the  Snow Meeting and Vilnius Intellectuals Forum will be honoured by Mikhail Khodorkovsky as a guest of the event.