Lithuania will offer Ukraine more weapons, in addition to the L70 anti-aircraft guns announced earlier this week, Defence Minister Arvydas Anušauskas says.
“This is an option, but not the only one. This is a proposal made by Lithuania, and the Ukrainians have yet to look at how effective it will be for them in countering drones,” Anušauskas told the radio Žinių Radijas on Thursday. “Lithuania is ready to implement this.”
Read more: Lithuania to send anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine
During a visit to Lviv on Wednesday, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said that Vilnius would give Ukraine L70 short-range anti-aircraft guns and ammunition.
“But we are also talking about more weapons which Ukraine could use and which we would send from Lithuania,” Anušauskas said, but did not elaborate on what weapons these could be.
“Technical-level preparations are underway now, and when we agree on everything, we will certainly announce it,” he said.
According to Anušauskas, the three Baltic defence ministers also discussed assistance to Ukraine as they met in Tallinn on Wednesday, in preparation for next week’s meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
The Lithuanian minister expects that in Ramstein, Ukraine’s supporters will announce “a completely different level of assistance than that provided so far”.
“I believe [this could include] heavy armoured vehicles – tanks,” he said, which would be “an important step for the defence of Ukraine, not just a symbolic gesture.”
Lithuania’s military assistance to Ukraine has so far included various weapons, ammunition, thermal imaging cameras, drones and anti-drones, and military personnel training.
The Lithuanian State Defence Council decided in November to send artillery ammunition to Ukraine, but not the German howitzers or NASAMS air defence systems requested by Kyiv.
Anušauskas said that Lithuania would not return to the issue.
“Since decisions have already been taken by the State Defence Council, I think we should not go back to these issues [...] unless we can replace our very limited capabilities in terms of air defence and self-propelled howitzers,” he said.
According to the minister, Latvia and Estonia have much more self-propelled howitzers than Lithuania.
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