Russia’s actions require a legal assessment and collective response, Kęstutis Budrys, a senior advisor to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, says amid reports of possible cases of sabotage and the Kremlin’s plans to change the maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland.
“One of the things that we definitely need is a legal assessment adequate to the activities,” Budrys told the Žinių Radijas radio on Tuesday.
“The other step is, of course, collective response. In this case, it is important to underline that this is not about Lithuania, the Baltic states, or Poland only [...], but it is about the whole alliance and all the countries that are helping Ukraine. That is why the response must be a collective, with red lines being drawn very clearly,” he added.
His comment came after 12 people were arrested in Poland last week, suspected of being involved in Russia’s sabotage activities.
Among the cases of sabotage, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk cited an attempt to set fire to the IKEA store in Vilnius.
Meanwhile, last Wednesday, reports emerged that Russia planned to change its maritime borders with Lithuania and Finland. This information was subsequently removed from the Russian Defence Ministry’s website.
According to Budrys, it is important to draw lines for Russia so that crossing them would be considered an act of aggression against NATO.
“Russia, I think, is testing us in the sense of how much we will tolerate this or that action, and that tolerance has not gone very far. We are talking about this with our partners at the moment,” he said.
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