LITHUANIA DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
IN THIS ISSUE:
- Lithuania’s State Defense Council approves State Defense Plan
- Upcoming events in Lithuania for Monday, November 6, 2023
- Lithuania’s State Defense Council to discuss defense plan, intl mission mandate
- Lithuania records no illegal border crossings from Belarus for 6th straight day
- Lithuania: MP Zemaitaitis’ impeachment commission set to adopt its conclusion
- Customs reports no more attempts to enter Lithuania with Russian-registered cars
- Lithuania reports 88 new COVID-19 cases, 1 death
- Lithuanian Seimas commission to adopt conclusion on legal immunity of MP Grazulis
- 450 extra officers to guard Lithuania's border with Belarus in two years – SBGS chief
- Lithuanian parlt commission says there're grounds for MP Zemaitaitis' impeachment
- Lithuania army launches exercise to test cyber incident scenarios
- NATO jets in Baltics scrambled once to escort Russian military aircraft
- Lithuania: Paleckis to be tried for defaming Kasciunas, expressing contempt for partisans
- Lithuania to hold large-scale mobilization exercise next year
- Court slaps EUR 70,000 fine on ex-Kaunas administration director
- Ukraine must remain Lithuania's foreign policy priority – president
- Lithuania to hold large-scale mobilization exercise next year (expands)
Lithuania’s State Defense Council approves State Defense Plan
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS – Lithuania’s State Defense Council (SDC) on Monday approved the State Defense Plan, Kestutis Budrys, President Gitanas Nauseda's chief national security advisor, said.
"The main and the big issue of today's meeting was the approval of the State Defense Plan, which means that Lithuania has a public, simple and accessible document that tells how the state sees itself in wartime and the involvement of every citizen,” he said at a press conference after the meeting of the SDC.
He added that the plan foresees the place of every citizen in the country’s defense, "so that there is not a single citizen, company or organization that does not know what to do”.
According to the presidential office, the State Defense Plan has been worked out to ensure that the different elements of the global defense function as a coherent whole. It covers armed defense, mobilization and civil resistance.
The objective of the plan is to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lithuania against armed attack through the concerted efforts and resources of the Armed Forces and NATO, state and municipal authorities, economic operators, citizens, and their organizations.
The plan was prepared by a group of experts from the presidential office, led by President Nauseda.
The SDC also discussed the state of the State Mobilization System and the mandate for international operations and deployments in 2024-2025.
The military mandate in force since the beginning of 2023 provides for the deployment of several hundred Lithuanian military and civilian personnel to 14 missions.
According to the Defense Ministry, 60 troops are currently serving in missions, half of them in the NATO-led international operation in Iraq.
Discussions on next year's missions took place in the context of Lithuania's declining involvement in these operations and the withdrawal of some countries from hot spots.
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Upcoming events in Lithuania for Monday, November 6, 2023
VILNIUS, Nov 6, BNS – The following events are scheduled in Lithuania for Monday, November 6, 2023:
PRESIDENT Gitanas Nauseda meet with heads of Lithuania's diplomatic representations at 9 a.m.; to chair a State Defense Council meeting at 2 p.m., followed by comments by SDC Secretary Kestutis Budry and meeting participants at 3.30 p.m.
PRIME MINISTER Ingrida Simonyte to meet with heads of Lithuania's diplomatic representations at 11.15 a.m.; to attend a State Defense Council meeting at 2 p.m.
FOREIGN MINISTER Gabrielius Landsbergis to deliver a welcome speech at the World Liberty Congress; to attend a State Defense Council meeting; to meet with Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom.
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Lithuania’s State Defense Council to discuss defense plan, intl mission mandate
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS – Lithuania’s State Defense Council (SDC) will convene on Monday to discuss the State Defense Plan and a mandate for international missions.
The State Defense Plan enshrines the principle of universal defense, "where all state resources – state institutions, the private sector, NGOs and citizens – are mobilized“, the presidential office told BNS.
The plan is being prepared by a group of experts from the presidential office, led by President Gitanas Nauseda.
The SDC will also discuss the state of the State Mobilization System and the mandate for international operations and deployments in 2024-2025.
The military mandate in force since the beginning of 2023 provides for the deployment of several hundred Lithuanian military and civilian personnel to 14 missions.
According to the Defense Ministry, 60 troops are currently serving in missions, half of them in the NATO-led international operation in Iraq.
Discussions on next year's missions will take place in the context of Lithuania's declining involvement in these operations and the withdrawal of some countries from hot spots.
By Augustas Stankevičius
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Lithuania records no illegal border crossings from Belarus for 6th straight day
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS – Lithuanian border guards recorded no attempts to cross into the country from Belarus illegally for the sixth day in a row on Sunday, the State Border Guard Service (SBGS) said on Monday morning.
Latvia reported 21 attempts at illegal border crossings on Sunday, and 61 irregular migrants were not allowed into Poland on Saturday, according to the latest available information.
A total of 2,191 irregular migrants have been barred from entering Lithuania from Belarus at non-designated places so far this year.
Lithuanian border guards have prevented a total of some 21,500 people from crossing in from Belarus since August 3, 2021, when they were given the right to turn away irregular migrants. The number includes repeated attempts by the same people to cross the border.
The influx of irregular migrants to the EU's eastern member states from Belarus began in 2021 and is blamed by the West on the Minsk regime.
Almost 4,200 irregular migrants crossed into Lithuania from Belarus illegally in 2021. However, the vast majority of them fled Lithuania once they were allowed to move freely.
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Lithuania: MP Zemaitaitis’ impeachment commission set to adopt its conclusion
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS – The Lithuanian parliament's temporary commission looking at whether there are grounds for impeaching MP Remigijus Zemaitaitis over his anti-Semitic comments plans to adopt its conclusion on Monday.
“We will go through the proposals of the members of the Seimas and will adopt the final conclusion at the end of the meeting,” Conservative MP Arunas Valinskas, the chairman of the impeachment commission, told BNS.
According to him, the conclusion will be based on the insights of the experts – lawyers, historians and political scientists – who testified before the commission.
In October, the commission already discussed and voted on a draft conclusion, and then agreed that there were grounds for Zemaitaitis’ impeachment. However, this conclusion was declared invalid, and it was decided to try again to invite Zemaitaitis to the meeting. Moreover, the representatives of the opposition, who had previously boycotted the commission, decided to participate in its work.
Zemaitaitis, who had been invited to cooperate with the impeachment commission in various ways, never showed up at its meetings. He calls the commission set up by the Seimas illegal.
The impeachment of Zemaitaitis for his anti-Semitic statements was initiated by representatives of the ruling political groups.
Their initiative states that the public statements and social media posts of this MP are anti-Semitic and incite hatred.
In response to Zemaitaitis' statements, the Prosecutor General's Office is conducting a pre-trial investigation into public contempt and incitement to hatred against any national, racial, ethnic, religious or other group of people.
The MP, who has legal immunity, was questioned as a special witness in the probe.
The MP insists that there is no basis for his impeachment. He denies any anti-Semitic content in his posts and says that all his statements can be substantiated with international documents or historical sources.
According to the Statue of the Seimas, if a group of at least 36 MPs tables an impeachment motion, the parliament sets up a special investigation commission to look at whether there are grounds for opening impeachment proceedings.
The full parliament then votes on the commission's conclusion and if it decides that there are grounds, it asks for the Constitutional Court's opinion on whether or not the MP has violated the Constitution and broken their oath.
If the court states that there was a violation, the Seimas votes on whether to strip the MP of their mandate. At least 85 votes in the 141-member parliament are needed to pass the motion.
Zemaitaitis' case would be a second impeachment procedure during this parliament after lawmakers turned to the Constitutional Court, asking it to rule whether MP Petras Grazulis breached his oath and violated the Constitution when he voted for another MP.
By Jūratė Skėrytė
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Customs reports no more attempts to enter Lithuania with Russian-registered cars
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS – The Lithuanian Customs has not recorded any attempts to enter Lithuania with cars with Russian registration plates for more than a month.
According to a clarification issued by the European Commission in September, cars purchased or registered in Russia cannot be allowed to enter the European Union.
"There are no attempts to enter with Russian plates now. We counted 70 [such attempts] in the first two weeks [58 in the first]. There is no problem with cars with Russian-registered plates trying to enter Lithuania. The problem was in the first week, then those entering got that information quickly and stopped trying to enter," Irmina Frolova-Milasiene, spokeswoman for the Customs Department, told BNS.
She added that cars with Russian registration plates that had previously entered Lithuania’s territory would have leave by March 11 next year.
"From that date onwards, measures will be taken – cars registered in Russia can be detained and even confiscated if there are such court decisions. So far, the customs authorities are not taking any such measures,” the spokeswoman told BNS.
Lithuanian customs officials warn those arriving at border checkpoints with Russian-registered cars that they will not be allowed in.
People travelling in such cars were also informed that if they attempt to enter Lithuania again, they might face a fine and confiscation of the vehicle for violating international sanctions.
In line with the European Commission's clarification, issued in early September, cars purchased or registered in Russia cannot be allowed to enter the bloc's territory. However, the requirements exclude cars transiting Lithuania on their way to or from the Kaliningrad exclave.
Sanctions that prohibit the entry into the EU of vehicles purchased or registered in Russia, as well as personal items, are aimed at restricting the entry of goods from Russia into the bloc.
Lithuania, together with the other Baltic States and Poland, has also imposed restrictions on the entry of Russian citizens both into the country and the EU.
Only Russian diplomats, dissidents, transport companies' employees, EU citizens' family members, and Russian citizens with residence permits or long-stay national visas from Schengen countries have been allowed into Lithuania since September 19, 2022.
Russian citizens can also transit through Lithuania by train to and from the Kaliningrad exclave.
Latvia, Estonia, Poland and Finland are also denying entry to cars with Russian registration plates.
By Ingrida Steniulienė
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Lithuania reports 88 new COVID-19 cases, 1 death
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS – Lithuania has recorded 88 new coronavirus infections and one death from COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, official statistics showed on Monday morning.
The 14-day primary infection rate has reached 190.7 cases per 100,000 people, with the seven-day percentage of positive tests at 36.4 percent.
The number of COVID-19 patients in hospitals stands at 120, including ten ICU cases.
The number of new coronavirus cases hit the peak in Lithuania in early February 2022 when more than 14,000 new infections were recorded daily. Around 1.19 million people in Lithuania have tested positive for COVID-19 at least once.
COVID-19 incidence in Lithuania took an upward turn in mid-September after having stayed at a low level since May.
Some 68.5 percent of people in the country have received at least one coronavirus vaccine jab so far, according to the statistics.
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Lithuanian Seimas commission to adopt conclusion on legal immunity of MP Grazulis
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS – An inquiry commission set up by the Seimas of Lithuania will on Monday adopt a conclusion on the request by Prosecutor General Nida Grunskiene to lift the legal immunity of MP Petras Grazulis in the case of contempt for members of the LGBTIQ community.
A couple of weeks ago, the prosecutor general addressed the Seimas asking to lift the legal immunity of Grazulis, a member of the non-attached political group in the Lithuanian parliament, so that prosecutors could charge him for publicly ridiculing and expressing contempt for a group of persons or a person on grounds of their sexual orientation.
Under the Statute of the Seimas, once the prosecutor general's request is heard, an inquiry commission needs to be set up to look into whether there are grounds to lift an MP's immunity and whether the MP is not being persecuted for political convictions. The Seimas will then vote on this conclusion.
Prosecutor Jurgita Jasiuniene told the commission’s meeting last week that the statements made by Grazulis about the representatives of the LGBTIQ community had shown contempt for a group of people and that the allegations were based on the findings of linguists.
Grazulis was also invited to attend the meeting to present his position, but he only came to state that he would not attend and reiterated that the proceedings against him were a political crackdown.
On May 26, 2022, after the Seimas gave its initial backing to the civil union bill legalizing same-sex unions, Grazulis met several representatives of the LGBTIQ community as he was leaving the plenary session hall and called them degenerates spreading STDs, and said they should get treatment.
The Criminal Code stipulates that "a person who publicly ridicules, expresses contempt for, urges hatred of or incites discrimination against a group of persons or a person belonging thereto on grounds of age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, race, skin color, nationality, language, descent, ethnic origin, social status, religion, convictions or views shall be punished by a fine or by restriction of liberty or by arrest or by a custodial sentence for a term of up to two years".
This is the second time in this parliamentary term that the prosecutor general has asked the parliament to strip Grazulis, a member of the non-attached political group in the Seimas, of his legal immunity.
Grazulis' legal immunity was waived in December 2020 to allow bringing formal suspicions of abuse against him in the Judex case.
By Milena Andrukaitytė
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450 extra officers to guard Lithuania's border with Belarus in two years – SBGS chief
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS - 450 new officers are expected to join Lithuania's State Border Guard Service and guard Lithuania's border with Belarus over the next two years, Rustamas Liubajevas, the SBGS chief, says.
"The total number of additional officers over the next two years would be about 450 officers, and they would be assigned to protect the border with Belarus," he told members of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense, on Monday. "We want to strengthen border protection."
Additional officers would be recruited in 2024-2025.
"We have looked at our manning capacity, it would be difficult to organize training and fill posts over a year, apparently. That is why we have foreseen two years. We will start next year, when the budget is approved, and finish next year," Liubajevas said.
In his words, the recruitment of such a number of officers would be significant as the SBGS now has a total of 4,300 positions, including both officers and civil servants.
Before entering their service, new officers should complete a three-month induction course, Liubajevas said.
Lithuania's border with Belarus is also the external border of the European Union. Since 2021, it has been facing a flow of illegal migration, which, Lithuanian officials say, has been orchestrated by the Minsk regime. Lithuanian border guards have prevented 21,500 migrants from entering the country illegally from Belarus over the past more than two years. Some migrants have attempted to cross the border several times.
By Jūratė Skėrytė
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Lithuanian parlt commission says there're grounds for MP Zemaitaitis' impeachment
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS – The Lithuanian parliament's temporary commission has unanimously agreed that there are grounds for impeaching MP Remigijus Zemaitaitis over his anti-Semitic comments plans to adopt its conclusion on Monday.
The whole Seimas is expected to vote on the issue later.
"On the basis of all the collected and assessed evidence, on the basis of the provisions of the Constitution and other legal regulations, and on the basis of expert interviews, the Commission has found that MP Remigijus Zemaitaitis deliberately, repeatedly, and purposely disseminated information about the Jewish people and persons of Jewish ethnicity that does not correspond to the truth (...) in his Facebook posts on 8 May, 9 May, 13 June and 14 June 2023," the commission concluded on Monday.
It states that the MP attributed serious and very serious crimes committed by other persons or groups of persons to the Jewish people, blamed the Jewish people as a whole for the actions of individuals of that nationality or of certain acts of the State of Israel or its institutions.
It is also pointed out that, when speaking about the State of Israel, Jewish persons and the Jewish people as a whole, Zemaitaitis "used derogatory, impersonal, stereotyping, dehumanizing rhetoric, and presented tendentious and biased evaluations of historical and contemporary events related to Jewish persons".
The commission stated that, as a high-ranking state politician, the MP had insulted and humiliated the Israeli ambassador to Lithuania, an accredited official representative of the State of Israel, had insulted the State of Israel, and had openly justified and endorsed statement encouraging violent crackdown on the Jews, and that he had committed these acts for purposes that were possibly incompatible with the rights and obligations conferred by his mandate as a member of the Seimas.
"For these reasons, the commission concludes that Zemaitkaitis' actions can be deemed as incitement to national, racial, religious or social hatred, violence and discrimination, defamation and disinformation, which are incompatible with the freedom of expression (...),"the approved conclusion reads.
In early October, the commission already discussed and voted on a draft conclusion, and then agreed that there were grounds for Zemaitaitis’ impeachment. However, this conclusion was declared invalid, and it was decided to try again to invite Zemaitaitis to the meeting. Moreover, the representatives of the opposition, who had previously boycotted the commission, decided to participate in its work.
Zemaitaitis, who had been invited to cooperate with the impeachment commission in various ways, never showed up at its meetings. He calls the commission set up by the Seimas illegal.
The impeachment of Zemaitaitis for his anti-Semitic statements was initiated by representatives of the ruling political groups.
Their initiative states that the public statements and social media posts of this MP are anti-Semitic and incite hatred.
In response to Zemaitaitis' statements, the Prosecutor General's Office is conducting a pre-trial investigation into public contempt and incitement to hatred against any national, racial, ethnic, religious or other group of people.
The MP, who has legal immunity, was questioned as a special witness in the probe.
The MP insists that there is no basis for his impeachment. He denies any anti-Semitic content in his posts and says that all his statements can be substantiated with international documents or historical sources.
According to the Statue of the Seimas, if a group of at least 36 MPs tables an impeachment motion, the parliament sets up a special investigation commission to look at whether there are grounds for opening impeachment proceedings.
The full parliament then votes on the commission's conclusion and if it decides that there are grounds, it asks for the Constitutional Court's opinion on whether or not the MP has violated the Constitution and broken their oath.
If the court states that there was a violation, the Seimas votes on whether to strip the MP of their mandate. At least 85 votes in the 141-member parliament are needed to pass the motion.
The impeachment text quotes Zemaitaitis' social media posts, such as "It turns out that, besides Putin, another animal has emerged in the world – ISRAEL" or "We, the Lithuanian nation, must never forget the Jews and the Russians who very actively contributed to the DESTRUCTION OF OUR PEOPLE!", and others.
"After such events, it is no wonder why such sayings are born: 'A Jew climbed a ladder and fell down accidentally. Take a stick, children, and kill that little Jew'," the MP wrote earlier this year, referring to a folk counting-out rhyme.
By Jūratė Skėrytė
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Lithuania army launches exercise to test cyber incident scenarios
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS - The Lithuanian army on Monday started the active part of its Amber Mist 2023 cyber defense exercise to test various cyber incidents scenarios.
During the exercise, an incident center (Red Team) will be set up to act as the "bad guys" for the scenario development, and a cyber incident response teams (Blue Team) will be set up to deal with any challenges posed by the Red Team.
The exercise will test a number of scenarios, including the disruption of communication, noise causing and the installation of a malicious code or a physical network hack, the army said.
These scenarios will assess the ability of the military, public authorities and civilian sector companies to identify, analyze and prevent such cyber incidents.
The exercise will apply things learned from the NATO summit in Vilnius and other events and daily experiences of the institutions.
The exercise involves nearly 300 participants from Lithuania, Latvia, the US, Georgia, Ukraine and the EU's Croatia-led Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) force.
Institutions under the Defense Ministry, the Lithuanian Riflemen's Union, as well as representatives of state institutions, universities and civilian information technology companies will also take part in the exercise.
Such exercises have been organized since 2013.
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NATO jets in Baltics scrambled once to escort Russian military aircraft
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS – NATO fighter jets, stationed in the Baltic States as part of the NATO air policing mission, were scrambled once last week to identify and escort military aircraft of the Russian Federation in the international airspace over the Baltic Sea, the Defense Ministry reported on Monday.
On Sunday, NATO fighter jets were scrambled to intercept an AN-26 of the Russian Federation flying from mainland Russia to Kaliningrad without submitting a flight plan, without using the onboard transponder, and without keeping radio contact with the regional air traffic control center.
The NATO air policing mission in the Baltic States is carried out from Lithuania and Estonia.
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Lithuania: Paleckis to be tried for defaming Kasciunas, expressing contempt for partisans
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS – Algirdas Paleckis, a controversial figure serving a sentence for preparation to spy for Russia, will be tried for defaming MP Laurynas Kasciunas, chairman of the Lithuanian parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense (CNSD), and for expressing contempt for partisans.
In September 2022, Algirdas Paleckis publicly made false, untrue and demeaning statements about a Member of the Seimas in a social network channel, allegedly with the aim of defaming and humiliating the MP, the Prosecutor's Office said in a press release on Monday.
Moreover, according to the Prosecutor's Office, when speaking about Lithuania's post-war armed resistance, Paleckis presented it as a damage to Lithuania caused by the United States, and thereby allegedly belittled the participants of the post-war armed resistance, attributing to them only negative motives for the struggle and concealing the purpose of the resistance struggle to defend Lithuania's freedom.
"By this offensive and public statement, the accused denied and grossly downplayed the accountability of the USSR for the deaths of people during the genocide during the post-war armed resistance in Lithuania, shifting responsibility to the United States and hiding the role of the USSR, and belittled the participants of the post-war armed resistance in Lithuania," the press release said.
The criminal case of defamation and public support for, denial of, or gross trivialization of international crimes, crimes committed by the USSR or Nazi Germany has been transferred to the Kaunas District Court.
According to the Prosecutor's Office, the defendant does not admit his guilt.
Paleckis' liability is aggravated by the fact that he has committed the offence while being convicted for a deliberate offence before the expiry of the criminal record, i.e. while being a repeat offender.
The Criminal Code imposes a maximum penalty of up to one year's imprisonment for defamation, and up to two years' imprisonment for denying international crimes.
Paleckis was sentenced to six years in prison on charges of espionage. Later, however, his actions were reclassified as preparation to spy for Russia and his prison sentence was reduced by six months, to five years and a half.
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Lithuania to hold large-scale mobilization exercise next year
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS - A large-scale mobilization exercise will be organized in Lithuania next year, Kestutis Budrys, a presidential advisor, said after the State Defense Council meeting on Monday.
"Next year we plan to organize a large-scale general mobilization exercise to check how our whole system works," he said.
The SDC also assessed the work done on mobilization over the last two years, he said.
Also on Monday the SDC approved the country's State Defense Plan that enshrines the principle of universal defense, "where all state resources – state institutions, the private sector, NGOs and citizens – are mobilized“.
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Court slaps EUR 70,000 fine on ex-Kaunas administration director
KAUNAS, Nov 06, BNS – A court on Monday slapped Vilius Siliauskas, former city administration director in Kaunas, Lithuania's second-largest city, with a 70,000-euro fine for bribery.
Taking into account the time spent in detention, Siliauskas will have to pay 65,000 euros.
Siliauskas was convicted of directly demanding and accepting a total of 260,000 euros in bribes from Juozas Kriauciunas, the head of Autokausta, for his own benefit between 2021 and 2022 when he still served as the director of Kaunas city municipal administration.
Judge Audrius Meilutis of the Kaunas Regional Court announced on Monday that the amount of the bribe would also be recovered from Siliauskas.
Also, he was banned from the civil service for seven years.
Siliauskas fully admitted his guilt in court.
The court decision has not yet entered into force and may be appealed.
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Ukraine must remain Lithuania's foreign policy priority – president
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS - Lithuania's diplomatic efforts should be directed towards pooling international support for Ukraine as the international community's attention turns to new conflicts breaking out around the world, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told diplomats on Monday.
New conflicts breaking out in various parts of the world are diverting the international community's attention away from Russia's war in Ukraine and, more generally, from Russia's aggressive foreign policy intentions, Nauseda underlined.
"Ukraine has been and will continue to be of existential importance to us. And all diplomatic efforts must be focused on this priority. War fatigue cannot be allowed to set in, no matter what happens. We must continue to consistently mobilize comprehensive international support for Ukraine, raise the issues of Russia's responsibility for aggression and war crimes, and keep Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic perspective on the international agenda," the president said at his annual meeting with heads of diplomatic missions, representations to international organizations and consular establishments, held to discuss foreign policy issues, the regional and global geopolitical and security situation, and Lithuania's foreign policy goals and priorities.
Addressing the diplomats, Nauseda said that the international situation was rapidly deteriorating, the world was increasingly unstable, and there were more and more attempts to replace international law and diplomacy with brute force, according to the statement released by the presidential press service.
Recently, he said, the number of hotbeds of aggression and military conflicts has increased, and the element of surprise has come to dominate international processes. These trends pose even greater challenges for Lithuania and its diplomatic posture in the world, the president said, adding that the diplomatic service must be ready to act in this environment of geopolitical uncertainty.
In his speech, the Lithuanian president also stressed the importance of fostering transatlantic ties and effective functioning of NATO and the EU, and the necessity to act together with allies and partners to defend democratic values and the rules-based international order.
Nauseda thanked the country's diplomats who contributed to the successful organization of the NATO summit in Vilnius and said that it was now necessary to focus on the implementation of the important decisions made in Vilnius and to seriously prepare for the NATO summit in Washington.
The diplomatic service needs to be more focused, wiser and smarter than ever, the Lithuanian leader said.
As the military conflict between Israel and Hamas continues, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged at the weekend that the war in the Middle East was diverting the international community's attention away from the war in Ukraine, which, he said, is beneficial to Russia.
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Lithuania to hold large-scale mobilization exercise next year (expands)
(Updated version: new paras 3-4)
VILNIUS, Nov 06, BNS - A large-scale mobilization exercise will be organized in Lithuania next year, Kestutis Budrys, a presidential advisor, said after the State Defense Council meeting on Monday.
"Next year we plan to organize a large-scale general mobilization exercise to check how our whole system works," he said.
According to Laurynas Kasciunas, chair of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense, this would be a mobilization exercise for civilians.
"We have seven vital functions, and we need civilians to play a role in them," he said.
The SDC also assessed the work done on mobilization over the last two years, he said.
Also on Monday the SDC approved the country's State Defense Plan that enshrines the principle of universal defense, "where all state resources – state institutions, the private sector, NGOs and citizens – are mobilized“.
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