Lithuanian intelligence agencies predict that Russia’s war in Ukraine will eventually end, but threats to the region and Europe will persist, President Gitanas Nauseda said Tuesday.
“We believe that peace negotiations, though not very soon, will lead to the end of the war in Ukraine,” Nausėda told reporters after a meeting of the State Defence Council.
Intelligence officials presented their national security threat assessment to council members Tuesday. An unclassified version is scheduled to be made public March 6.
Despite the prospect of an eventual end to the war, Nausėda said that risks would remain.
“Russia’s war machine has gained momentum and is not producing for storage,” he said, adding that “military conflict is not inevitable”.
According to the president, Russia’s defence industry is unlikely to scale back production even if the fighting in Ukraine stops.
“It certainly will not be stopped if the war in Ukraine ends, or at least temporarily ends,” he said.
In last year’s assessment, Lithuanian intelligence said a diplomatic resolution of the war in the near term was unlikely. That report was presented amid pressure from US President Donald Trump to bring Russia and Ukraine to peace talks.
Nausėda said Lithuania appreciates US efforts to end the war but stressed that peace must not be achieved “at any cost”.
“This cost must first be determined by Ukrainian society itself, which is suffering this war, which is heroically resisting Russian pressure and has achieved, despite very difficult circumstances, certain breakthrough moments on the battlefield,” he said.
“Therefore, let us not give in to pessimism: Ukraine is holding on, Ukraine is heroic, and Ukraine will remain so in the future,” he added.
Nausėda also opined that US and Israeli strikes on Iran could reduce military aid available to Kyiv, since the US and other NATO countries would need to supply weapons to Israel and other Middle East countries under threat from Iran’s retaliation.
“This is probably a negative aspect of this problem and this crisis,” he said.
He added that any new conflict risks diverting political attention away from Ukraine.
“That is why now, more than ever, we must remind the international community that the war in Ukraine is not ending,” Nausėda said. “It has entered a brutal stage where innocent civilians are being attacked, with attempts to exploit even the winter cold to cause as much discomfort as possible and psychologically break Ukrainian society.”
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