Ukraine’s drone raid on Russia was the kind of pressure needed to force Moscow to negotiate, Lithuanian Defence Minister Dovilė Šakalienė said in Brussels on Wednesday.
"The aggressor is not interested in real negotiations and peace. This is why it is not only necessary to maintain and strengthen our support for Ukraine, but also to take stronger allied action against Russia. The incredible success of the Ukrainian Operation Spiderweb is exactly the kind of pressure that Russia needs to face in order to change Putin's attitude towards negotiations," the minister said.
In the meeting of EU defence ministers in Brussels, Šakalienė also welcomed Germany's decisions to lift range restrictions on arms shipments to Ukraine.
"This decision will allow Ukraine to defend itself more effectively and deter the enemy. This is an example of how allies should behave in order to achieve a real change in Russia's behaviour," she said.
Russia could do the same, says general
Lithuania's Chief of Defence Raimundas Vaikšnoras said Russia may copy Ukraine’s approach for its operations.
"If we sit back now and think that only the Ukrainians can do this, of course, we would be very wrong," he told the Žinių Radijas radio on Thursday.
According to Vaikšnoras, Lithuania’s military has already begun discussions on how to prevent similar types of attacks.
"Yesterday, we had a meeting with the commander of the Public Security Service about this because they are responsible for the protection of strategic objects in peacetime, and we were looking at how to improve our vigilance and the possibility of [...] giving as much warning as possible in advance and how to anticipate [similar attacks],” he said.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
