Lithuania says that NATO miscalculated with regard to Russia and should resolve the issue of Ukraine's membership.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas said that NATO had underestimated the ability of the terrorist country Russia to adapt to the situation on the battlefield. According to him, despite the sanctions, the Kremlin has managed to put the country's economy on a military footing.

At the same time, Kasciunas emphasized that the North Atlantic Alliance should finally resolve the issue of Ukraine's membership in NATO. This was reported by LRT.

The head of the defense ministry believes that at the upcoming summit in Washington, NATO countries should primarily focus on the Russian military threat, as the Alliance has underestimated the Kremlin's capabilities. Kasciunas is confident that this is why Russia has managed to put its economy on a military track even under sanctions.

According to him, this mistake and underestimation arose because when trying to "understand" Russia, the United States and Europe proceeded from the fact that they used the Western approach and criteria to assess its strategy. Kasciunas explained that Russia's lack of responsibility for its society and its brutal management of its own mobilization potential makes it one of the most dangerous enemies that NATO must confront in the near future.

The minister is also convinced that in response to this and other threats, the Allies will have to change a lot in NATO's work. According to him, first of all, on the "eastern flank", the stage of building a more flexible system of response and deterrence has come, which requires the allocation of more powers to the Alliance's regional forces.

In addition, the head of the Lithuanian defense ministry believes that the increase in defense spending to 2% is only the lower limit, which will undoubtedly be raised. Kasciunas also said that NATO countries will have to seriously modernize and strengthen their military-industrial complexes.

At the same time, the Lithuanian minister said that NATO should "consider Ukraine as an instrument of deterring aggression directed against Europe and the West." To this end, the West should consider Ukraine as "an element of Euro-Atlantic security and unity" and, ultimately, resolve the issue of Ukraine's membership in NATO.

As a reminder, the Commander of the Finnish Armed Forces, General Janne Jaakkola, said that the Russian Federation is unlikely to directly attack a NATO country. But it may well continue hybrid attacks, including signal jamming and election interference, to test the unity of the Alliance.

Earlier it was reported that among all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Hungary and Slovakia have the least supporters of Ukraine's integration into the European Union and NATO. At the same time, the number of Slovaks who would like to see our country in Western institutions has decreased in recent years, while the number of Hungarians has increased.

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War in UkraineUkraine's accession to NATO