On Tuesday morning, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine addressed the leaders of the Baltic and Nordic countries, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands via a conference call to brief them on the course of the war. “Kyiv is being shelled today. It could be your capitals tomorrow. Help yourselves by helping Ukraine,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the participants of the meeting. The leaders of the JEF countries responded to the call by discussing an additional supply of weapons to Ukraine, which is fighting for its sovereignty.
“Countries, including Lithuania, which make up the Joint Expeditionary Force were among the first to start supplying weapons to Ukraine before the Russian invasion. We must expand and speed up this support. During the meeting, we also discussed the possibility of establishing a special fund for Ukraine, the funds of which would be allocated to defense as well,” the President of Lithuania said.
He stressed that the most important task for the democratic world today was to stop Russia’s attack on Ukraine and to protect the country’s civilian population who became targets of the Russian army.
“The war in Ukraine, which has been going on for 20 days now, has given rise to optimism, but also to great anxiety. The blitzkrieg that Putin was hoping for has not happened because he underestimated the courage and consolidation of the Ukrainians as well as the unity of the world in fighting the aggressor. However, it is clear that Putin is not retreating and that his actions are becoming increasingly brutal. The countries that have come together in the Joint Expeditionary Force have done a lot to support Ukraine, but today we must do even more,” Gitanas Nausėda noted.
Speaking about the new European Security Strategy, the Lithuanian President emphasized that today all the countries on the continent had to perceive the situation in the same way: Russia posed a threat to all, without exception.
Gitanas Nausėda said that in order to have a strong and secure Europe, the countries on the continent had to invest more than 2 percent of their GDP in defense. He stressed that Lithuania had already made a political decision to increase defense spending by a quarter this year to 2.5 percent of GDP and that this share would grow in the coming years.
The President of Lithuania also underscored that the European security architecture could not function without a transatlantic link and therefore the U.S. involvement in Europe remained key to security.
“The Joint Expeditionary Force is a military force of countries which can respond quickly and efficiently when needed. They could be the first to respond to any crisis in the Baltic Sea region. The presence of this force in the region – joint exercises and ensuring security in the air, at sea and on land – is also very important to us, as well as its cooperation with NATO forces already deployed to the Baltic States,” said Gitanas Nausėda, proposing to intensify military exercises in the region.
The Joint Expeditionary Force, launched on the initiative of the United Kingdom in 2012, is currently made up of ten northern European countries.
