Lithuania joined a regional démarche to France in response to President Emmanuel Macron’s comments on security guarantees for Russia, Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis confirmed on Tuesday.
“To my knowledge, yes, we did [join the démarche],” Lithuania’s top diplomat told reporters in Vilnius. “The aim was to express concern over and give an assessment to recurring proposals to negotiate with Moscow and to provide some kind of security guarantees.”
“We believe that it is Ukraine that needs security guarantees first and foremost,” he added.
Démarche is a formal communication from one government to another, oftentimes expressing protest at the latter’s actions.
Reuters has reported that the Baltic states and several other European countries upset at Macron’s comments “formally lodged disapproval and explained their position to France” on Monday.
Not interested in peace
The démarche was initiated by the Czech Republic, which holds the EU Council presidency, and handed to France's Foreign Ministry by Czech, Latvian, Estonian’, and Polish diplomats. It was also signed by Lithuania and Slovakia.
In the document, seen by BNS, the seven countries say that it is Ukraine that needs security guarantees, not the aggressor, and that they reject the idea of security guarantees for Russia because it has “no interest in peace”.
The document also says that it is not the alliance that scares Russia, but Western values such as freedom, democracy and respect for human rights.
According to the Czech-initiated letter, Russia does not respect its international obligations and any concessions to the regime “will only encourage it to be even more aggressive”.
Security guarantees for Russia
In an interview with France’s TF1 channel last Saturday, Macron said that Europe should think “how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table”.
That provoked new concern in Kyiv that the French leader was seeking to balance his support for Ukraine’s war effort with diplomatic outreach to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Elysée Palace said later that Macron’s comments about offering Russia security guarantees had been taken “out of context” and that the French president was repeating his long-held view that a negotiated settlement would be needed to end the conflict.
In his interview, however, Macron also stressed that France would not put pressure on Ukraine to stop its struggle to regain the territory occupied by Russia.
NATO prospects
On security guarantees for Ukraine, Landsbergis said that they were basically linked to the country’s potential membership of NATO.
“Lithuania is strongly in favour of security guarantees to be eventually provided by NATO,” he said. “In other words, [Vilnius says that Ukraine] has the right to become a member of NATO and to have the same security guarantees that Lithuania has.”
Europe’s security architecture must start with Ukraine, “by engaging it, defending it and then defending ourselves together with it”, according to the minister.
“I don’t have any other idea,” he said.
Landsbergis echoed Kyiv’s view that talks with Russia can only be held when it capitulates and compensates Ukraine for the damage, and when those responsible are brought to justice.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Finland also signed the démarche.
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