Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielyus Landsbergis said that NATO countries should not negotiate on Russia's proposals related to mutual security guarantees.

In an interview with the British newspaper The Times, he expressed the opinion that these initiatives should be immediately rejected.

“We do not think that any negotiations should start on what was proposed by Russia,” he said.

Such a harsh position may be due to one of the proposals of Moscow, spelled out in the fourth article of the corresponding document: states of Europe in addition to the forces stationed in this territory as of May 27, 1997 ".

The Baltic republics joined NATO during the fifth expansion of the alliance in 2004, and since 2017, an international battalion of 1,200 troops has been deployed in the Lithuanian town of Rukla, which is under German command.

As noted by Landsbergis, the alliance has not yet talked about the withdrawal of this or other units of NATO's expanded forward presence.

“We believe that there is a need to maintain the current level of defense in the region.

And the only negotiations that we would like to see are about the possibility of strengthening security guarantees for the region, which starts from the Black Sea in Romania and goes to Estonia, ”the minister said.

As Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda noted in February 2020, the deployment of a NATO military contingent in the Baltics helps to resist Russia.

“Without the support of the United States and other NATO allies, we would not have been able to effectively contain the Russian threat,” he said during a speech at the Munich Security Conference.

Nauseda said about the need to build up NATO forces against the background of the events around Ukraine on December 20 this year at a joint press conference with the presidents of Ukraine and Poland Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Andrzej Duda.

  • Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielyus Landsbergis

  • Reuters

  • © Mandel Ngan

Returning to Landsbergis' interview with The Times, the diplomat also expressed confidence that military assistance should be provided to Kiev, in particular, the supply of defense weapons.

He attributed this to the threat of a "Russian invasion" of Ukraine.

“Everything indicates that this intention is real, and we must prepare for this.

It is also possible that the intention is not only to attack, but in fact to change the security situation in the entire region, ”the Foreign Minister said.

"There is a consistent refutation"

Russia has repeatedly denied all claims of Western countries that Moscow is allegedly preparing an "attack" on Ukraine.

As Vladimir Putin noted on December 8, Russia is pursuing a peaceful foreign policy.

At the same time, he stressed that the Russian Federation reserves the right to ensure its security in the medium and long term.

“And we are discussing this with all our partners, including ... the President of the United States, Mr. Biden,” the president said.

The spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, spoke on the same topic last week. 

“This perception is not even distorted reality, but this is a fake, disinformation campaign, which is aimed, firstly, at creating Russia as an aggressor.

And secondly, probably, on additional tension in the region associated with the Black Sea, Ukraine, the Russian-Ukrainian border, the situation in the south-east of Ukraine, "Zakharova said on the air of RT DE.

Despite this, a number of NATO member states, including Lithuania, insist on supplying Ukraine with weapons.

Bratislava against

The views of our Lithuanian colleagues on how NATO should react to Russian proposals for security guarantees are shared in Slovakia as well.

In particular, Prime Minister Eduard Heger on his Facebook page stated that it was unacceptable to return to the alignment of forces in Europe that was in 1997 (Slovakia also became a member of the alliance in 2004).

"It is unacceptable for us to want to erase what has been achieved (in the field of strengthening Euro-Atlantic unity. -

RT

) over these more than 20 years," Heger said.

At the same time, he recognized the need to start a constructive dialogue with Russia as soon as possible.

However, the prime minister linked him with a demand for Moscow to withdraw its troops from the Ukrainian border.

Meanwhile, senior NATO officials point out that there is no consensus in the alliance on how to respond to Moscow's security initiatives.

In particular, the Financial Times newspaper, citing informed sources, reported that Western politicians, on the one hand, consider most of the RF proposals unacceptable, and on the other, do not want to give a direct refusal on them, fearing to aggravate relations with Russia.

"The problem is that if you simply refuse (to the demands of Moscow. -

RT

), then there will be no room for dialogue," a high-ranking NATO diplomatic representative emphasized in an interview with the publication.

However, Russia does not intend to retreat from its demand for guarantees from the alliance.

So, Vladimir Putin at an expanded meeting of the board of the Ministry of Defense on December 21 said that Moscow will not allow this issue to be "blabbed".

“There are some signals that the partners seem to be ready to work on this.

But there is also a danger that an attempt will be made to chatter, to plunge into some kind of swamp all our proposals, and by themselves, using this pause, to do what they want ... We understand this and such a development of events will not suit us, of course, ” - said the president.

  • German soldiers on the territory of the Lithuanian military base Rukla

  • © REUTERS / Ints Kalnins

Mastering the European military theater

Experts believe that the latest statements by high-ranking representatives of Lithuania and Slovakia can be viewed as an attempt to curry favor with the United States.

These countries, having little weight in the foreign policy space, are trying to add significance to themselves by actively rejecting Russia's right to guarantees of its security, analysts are sure.

And Washington will use this by increasing pressure on Moscow.

“In this paradigm of great power rivalry, the United States will regard Europe as another potential theater of military operations for Russia to make concessions.

At the same time, our proposals on security took the Americans by surprise, since no one in Washington expected that Russia would seriously lobby for this issue, "Sergey Ermakov, an expert at the RISS Research Coordination Center, explained in an interview with RT.

In his opinion, the current situation can be viewed as preparation by the West for a new Cold War.

In this connection, Ukraine is used as a pretext and a "gray zone", a tool for provocations.

“However, the West is now facing a rather difficult question, what guarantees it gives Ukraine.

And these guarantees should not be in words, because hysteria leads to the pumping up of militaristic expectations and sentiments in Ukraine, in its leadership.

However, as we can see now, none of Kiev's allies is ready to offer her real protection, ”the analyst added.

In turn, Alexei Podberezkin, director of the Center for Military-Political Studies at MGIMO, admitted that now the dissatisfied voices of the "small" NATO countries can be used by the United States to drag out negotiations on Russian initiatives.

“The fact is that a country like Lithuania is simply obliged to say something according to the distribution of roles in NATO, it cannot do anything else.

Thus, she justifies her membership in the bloc, "the expert said in a conversation with RT.

  • NATO flag

  • Legion-Media

  • © Zoonar / GRAZVYDAS JANUSKA

In this regard, he stressed, Lithuania will grasp at any convenient topic, especially anti-Russian one, and at any opportunity to please its more influential partners in the person of the United States.

“After all, the United States wants to use Ukraine as a front destabilizing the internal political situation in Russia, especially in relation to the upcoming presidential elections in 2024.

They need to shake things up in Russia, ”Podberezkin said.

At the same time, he agreed with Yermakov's opinion that Washington does not want to take responsibility for the future of Ukraine.

No wonder Joe Biden said that the White House had never discussed the possibility of sending an American contingent to Ukraine, the political scientist recalled.

“In this case, it doesn't matter whether Ukraine is a NATO member or not.

It will be an ally of the broad coalition of NATO states, as it is now.

Moreover, the Americans are drawing both neutral and non-European states into this coalition.

Therefore, Russian demands for security guarantees are now somewhat confusing the US map.

After all, Washington and NATO cannot ignore them, but accepting them means voluntarily tying their hands, ”Podberezkin summed up.