Negotiate with Russia with ‘gun on the table,’ Lithuanian defense minister says

EXCLUSIVE: Growing up under the Soviet rule, the Lithuanian Minister of Defense Dovilė Sakalienė should not celebrate Christmas. Her mother was born in a Siberian prison camp.

Crime?

Her teenage brother was caught sharing leaflets who said, “Lithuania is free.” After 50 years of Soviet occupation during the Cold War, many Lithuanians today are careful in any negotiations Russian President Vladimir Putin And they watch the next step of the kremlin.

“In my opinion, the only effective diplomacy with Russia was what Al Capone said. The only good negotiation is when you have a gun on the table. So this is probably a kind of diplomacy that would work with Russia,” he warned during an interview at the Litanian Embassy on Friday in Washington.

Asked if Putin could be trusted, a 46-year-old Defense Minister, who once lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as an exchange student, replied: “Are you joking me? After being done in my family and Russia for generations, I don’t think you will find a liter who could trust Vladimir Putin.”

The Russian full invasion of Ukraine is now more than three years old. Since returning to the office, President Donald Trump participated in direct conversations with Russia to end the war.

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“Historically speaking, Russia has never retained an agreement,” Sakalienė said. “Our only hope is that the arduous and sharp approach of President Donald Trump may be the only protector who controlled Putin. So, hopefully that will happen.”

Located in Eastern Europe, 2.8 million Lithuania inhabitants in the area of ​​approximately the size of Western Virginia, a small country cannot afford the neglect of Russia. It shares a 184 -kilometer border with Russia (Kalingrad), as well as a 420 -kilometer border with Belarus, which he says is “now just a platform for the Russian army.”

She said, “They try to scare us. They try to make us insecure,” about the Russian forces in the neighborhood.

Lithuania increases the consumption of defense as a result of Russia, which launched its entire invasion of Ukraine and plans to exceed Trump’s demand that NATO allies consume 5% of GDP on defense. Sakalienė said her country hopes to reach 6% by next year. The US is currently spending 3.4%.

Last month, US Defense Minister Pete Hegsetth also persuaded NATO allies increase the consumption of defense. “The United States will no longer tolerate an unbalanced connection that stimulates addiction,” he warned at the NATO Bruxelles headquarters about his first trip abroad.

As a NATO Defense Minister, Sakalienė was there in Brussels. She greeted Hegseth’s remarks, calling them a “ice bucket of water.”

“I saw the faces of my colleagues. A lot of shock, a lot of stress,” she said. “No one in the room mentioned 2% [of GDP] Which is so superfluous, irrelevant, inadequate. It’s gone. These are old news. “

When asked why Western Europe lags behind defensive spending years after Russia seized 20% Ukraine, Sakalienė replied, “I think a very much large part of the democratic world has been caught in this illusion of the idealistic world, which never existed.”

She said that part of the illusion believed that the wars were over. Russia never thought this way, she explained.

“The undemocratic part of the world has not changed. They actually play according to their rules. So if they are not played according to our rules, our blindness is what set us into this dangerous position.”

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Sakalienė is the only NATO defense minister that China has sanctioned. When asked about Beijing’s motives to support Russia, her answer could surprise some people.

“Russia is able to increase its military production so effectively because China feeds it,” she said. “It’s useful for China Having this war of exhaustion, and is also useful for China, although it supplies Russia, so that Russia also lose a lot of its soldiers – a lot of its weapons and equipment – because the weaker Russia is more suitable for China. “

Despite the great losses on the battlefield in Ukraine in the last three years, Russia builds an army Out of 1.5 million soldiers, according to a chakalienėu, who warned that Putin was in his hand “more imperial expansion plans”.

When Fox News sat in the Lithuanian embassy on Friday, Trump was trying to provide an agreement on the rights of mineral rights with Ukraine and finally hoped to request an agreement on the interruption of fire with Russia.

“If Russia violates the truce, the answer must be immediate and violent,” the chakalien persuaded.

When she asked her reaction to a report that Trump was considering not to defend the NATO allies who did not spend enough on defense, Sakalienė applauded the sharp rhetoric from Trump, calling her “painful” but justified. “Everyone needs to make their contribution, sharing the cargo is the main rule if you really want to have a strong alliance.”

She pointed to the Baltic States and Poland as the leading NATO members of the defense costs as a percentage of GDP.

Last year, European Union, Which Lithuania is a member, spent more on oil and gas more than help Ukraine. Sakalienė said her country was “the first to interrupt” Russian oil and gas. “We even supported our neighbors, Latvians and Polish with energy supply. So, for us, regardless of Russian energy, it is a matter of life and death.”

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When Fox News sat down at the Embassy, ​​Lithuania had just announced that it would withdraw from a cluster municipality convention, more than 100 States of Cluster bombing. Sakalienė explained why Lithuania was pulling.

“We want to be ready to use everything and everything that is needed to protect our borders. We do not want the Russians to come to our homes again. We want to send a strategic message, a very clear message, that we will do our best to protect ourselves.”

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Lithuania, along with other European countries, also wants to withdraw from another contract soon known as the Ottawa Convention, which forbids the mines of the earth mines.

“This is a terrible weapon, just like the mint in the cluster, but the Russians use weapons, including forbidden weapons. So we want to send a message back,” she said.

In addition to Russia, China and United States They are also not parties of the agreement. In 2014, the United States announced that they would adhere to the Ottawa Convention, except for the mines already arranged in the Korean Peninsula.

Sakalienė, a deeply pious Christian, said that Russia not only attacks Ukraine, but also the Christian faith.

“It was the Soviet Russia who tried to destroy the church in Ukraine, in Lithuania, in Poland. They have now revived their Christianity and used it for the KGB infiltration, for the FSB infiltration, she said.” This is a betrayal. “

She continued, “When we see the bombardment of churches in Ukraine, they rob … Christian community In Ukraine, it is killed and their beautiful heritage is destroyed. “

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The Lithuanian Defense Minister ended the interview with a final warning.

“We tend to try to diminish our enemies. This is a mistake. You have to see them what they are.”