What will you do with one army division? Will you play with it in the place of tin soldiers?

 

Stalin asked how many divisions the Pope has. When you need to achieve more than the Pope can, when you need to do something in the world, you need many divisions, not just one. For such a small nation as ours, having one division is impractical, naive and stupid. We need good diplomacy, not one impoverished division bought with the last cents of our children.

 

“Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas states that his and the Lithuanian Minister of National Defense’s views on the security situation do not differ, but emphasizes that state leaders should not intimidate people.

 

“The positions are certainly not different, we are talking about the level of Lithuania’s preparation. In fact, Lithuania has never been better prepared than it is now, and accordingly, even greater and more important steps are being taken so that our preparation, the preparation of the defense sector, the army, would be the greatest deterrent factor, so that no one would ever try to threaten us in any way. There are really no differences of opinion here,” the Head of Government told journalists in Klaipėda on Friday.

 

He also emphasized that there is no need to scare the people of Lithuania with constant talk about threats.

 

“People do not need to be scared, because a scared, anxious person is psychologically less productive, prone to depression, and unwilling to invest, so it is in the greatest interest of all of us that every person in Lithuania should be as calm as possible, do their job, invest, and thereby replenish the budget and our defense capabilities,” said G. Paluckas.

 

“All state leaders should not scare the public when there is really no need to do so,” he added.

 

The Prime Minister told Žinių radijas this week that Lithuania is in the “most secure situation” because there has never been so much investment in defense and political will in the region.

 

At the same time, Minister of National Defense Dovilė Šakalienė spoke to the “Redakcija” podcast about the opposite. According to her, “we are in the most threatening situation in decades.”

 

G. Paluckas and D. Šakalienė commented on the security situation after US President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and stated that they had agreed to immediately begin negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine, which has been going on for almost three years.

 

D. Trump indicated that his meeting with the Russian president on ending the conflict in Ukraine may take place in Saudi Arabia.

 

The conversation between the US and Russian presidents also raised concerns abroad that Ukraine would not be included in the negotiations on its fate. In addition, D. Trump stated that Kyiv’s desire to join NATO was “impractical.”

 

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said on Thursday that the security situation in the region is definitely better than at the beginning of 2022.

 

“During that time, very important NATO summits took place in Madrid, Vilnius, and Washington, and during that time we received assurances from Germany that its brigade will be deployed in Lithuania until 2027,” the president said.

 

“However, in order for that security situation to be even better, we need to create and arm a national division.

 

Then I will be able to say that in 2030 the security situation in Lithuania is better than at the beginning of 2025,” he said.”