00:07I'm joined now by Foreign Affairs Minister of Lithuania, Kastutis Budris.
00:11Minister, you're very welcome to 12 Minutes on Euronews.
00:14Thank you for having me, Hugh.
00:16So you're in Ireland now and we had the informal Foreign Affairs Minister's meeting at the
00:21time when Germany formally accuses Russia of responsibility for that drone attack in
00:27Leipzig.
00:28First of all, can I ask you, what do you think of the measures taken by Germany?
00:33Of course, they have to be proportionate, but a lot of people are a little bit critical
00:36that they sort of fall short when you look at the damage that could have been done by
00:40that attack.
00:41Well, first of all, German services, security intelligence services, they acted really quickly.
00:48So they prevented this plot, this state terrorism act, and then they attributed the services
00:56and the country and the services responsible for it.
00:59So this is the good sign that we have the capabilities and in line with the additional powers that will
01:07be given to German services from now on as they made a decision to expand those powers in purpose
01:14to counter the hybrid activities of Russian services.
01:17It shows us the perspective of strengthening at least Germany and the whole Europe.
01:24It also shows that for Russia, these measures are not enough to prevent them from these actions, meaning
01:31that they are not deterred, meaning that our previous responses were not enough to recalculate the whole situation.
01:38And for Russia, it is still, so to say, cheap way to increase the tension in our society, to question
01:48whether our policies
01:49and supporting Ukraine are the ones that we have to follow.
01:53And it means that Russia highly likely will escalate in the future.
01:57So is this a watershed moment?
02:00Because until now, most countries have held back from directly attributing blame to Russia.
02:06What happens after this?
02:07What does this actually mean now in terms of Europe's response to this consistent threat of hybrid activity?
02:13No.
02:14With the attribution, it's not only a political decision to do it or not.
02:18You have to know it and you have to prove it.
02:21So each time when we say that there are specific Russian services, mainly GRU, the military intelligence behind it,
02:27it means that we are not just guessing around or saying that it's likely or highly likely.
02:31We have the proof that they are behind it, as it was the case with those kinetic operations,
02:36as we are calling them in the Baltics and in Lithuania, arson attempts, assassination attempts,
02:42also other kinetic activities in our country.
02:46So we know who is responsible.
02:48And in saying that, and especially publicly, we know who did it.
02:52Of course, there is then the second phase needed.
02:56So what you do about it?
02:57So what is our response?
02:59So bilaterally, we already heard what Germany decided to do vis-a-vis Russia.
03:05That's concerning their diplomatic representation, some other measures.
03:11But collectively, as European Union, we also have to address it collectively.
03:16And for it, we have to increase our sanctions to Russia specifically for this reason and to show
03:24that we are not intimidated and that we won't stop our support to Ukraine.
03:29So for this occasion, we have also to increase our packages to Ukraine.
03:35Moreover, now there is ongoing discussion about prolonging the current individual sanctions to Russian individuals.
03:43Because otherwise, then there is the fundamental question in front of us whether we can deter it at all.
03:49So our answer from Lithuania is yes, we can.
03:53We did it with the incidents in our airspace, meaning prevented for them from being repeated in the Baltic Sea,
04:02with the Baltic century operation, Eastern century operation.
04:05So now we should do it also.
04:07But that was NATO.
04:08And for people who are watching at home, they hear a lot about hybrid activity.
04:13And for a long time, people like you have been saying hybrid activity is not the right way of speaking
04:18about this,
04:18because this is actual warfare.
04:19In addition, you talk about state-sponsored terrorism, yourself and the EU foreign policy chief Kayakalas is saying this is
04:26kinetic, it's violent.
04:27Tell us a bit about what's been going on over the past few months.
04:31You said the threat has quadrupled this morning.
04:33We are calling them kinetic more operation than the hybrid, because in our language,
04:38the hybrid definition becomes something, you know, more like an informational campaign, some propaganda messages,
04:44and maybe messing around in our networks, so some cyber activities.
04:48So behind all these operations, the absolute majority of these operations is military intelligence of Russia.
04:54So it is the institution that is part of the armed forces of Russia.
04:59So it is very close to the military activities.
05:03The form of these operations is, to their thinking, to Russia's thinking, is a bit below Article 5 of NATO,
05:12a bit below of the act of aggression.
05:14And it means that the collective defense will be less effective.
05:19Falls short of that.
05:20Yeah, falls short of the decision that we are under attack.
05:24So we have all the other measures, how to counter it and to stop it.
05:28So how we are stopping it on the field, that's the counterintelligence capabilities.
05:32That's our security and intelligence services that has to be strengthened.
05:36But the other layer is the political price and other forms of prices to Russia, and also economic price.
05:44It cannot be that we have the huge number of Russian tourists right now in the European Union still traveling.
05:51We have up to, I think, half a million or so visas that were issued last year, and this number
05:57is increasing.
05:58How come the country that wages these activities, their citizens can still travel here?
06:03So we have to restrict those.
06:04Russian diplomats, they can travel easily across the European Union without any problems.
06:11So we have to stop this.
06:12And also, there was a big issue of Russian combatants and the ones that are related to the operations against
06:18Ukraine.
06:18They are still allowed to get visas and then to come to the EU.
06:22There has been subsequent attacks, hybrid war attacks in Germany since Leipzig, even today and yesterday.
06:28But actually, are you saying that if Leipzig, the drone with the military-grade explosives, was in Lithuania, for example,
06:36that the Lithuanian government would have responded differently, that you would have said that this is an act of aggression?
06:42That was the plot that was prevented.
06:45So we do not have the damage and the casualties.
06:47Okay, so you're saying if there was damage.
06:49Yes, if there is the attribution, there is the intention, there is the damage done, and it falls under UN
06:57chartered definition, what are the conditions for the self-defense, of course we would go for it.
07:03We don't need some working group and some commission to find out that it would take time.
07:08No, we will go immediately.
07:10This is the thing that we have to collectively also make sure Russians, because they are playing here, and their
07:17bets are really high, and it is dangerous for our societies to fall into this trap.
07:23So we had the incidents with explosives already in the Baltic states.
07:27Those were prevented ones.
07:29But we also had the attempts to burn a factory, the IKEA shop, the arson operation.
07:36A number of weeks ago, the United States had an assessment that – now, we've heard this a lot, okay,
07:43but it was sort of reinforced again a few weeks ago – that there could be a potential attack on
07:48NATO territory by the Kremlin in a bid to unravel NATO somewhat.
07:53That it wouldn't be a full-scale invasion, but some sort of a limited ground invasion.
07:57And what are you hearing about that?
07:59And do you think then, therefore, if you were to trigger something like Article 5, that that could create a
08:05sort of chaos within NATO, because it may not have full unity in terms of the response?
08:10Everything that we do or we consider, we do it with our allies, we coordinate, and then we exchange our
08:18intelligence and our knowledge and understanding of the situation.
08:22So I can assure that those pieces of information that are shared publicly among the nations of the region –
08:31Baltics, Nordics, Poland and Germany – and each time the US is mentioned, we are possessing the similar information.
08:39Do you think America would stand by you as well, the United States, would stand by in the event of
08:45an Article 5 situation?
08:46I have no doubts in Article 5.
08:48And politically, militarily, this is the strongest alliance that ever existed on this earth.
08:55And each day, we are working on preventing some things, ensuring what we know, and planning, planning, planning operationally in
09:03purpose to be stronger for the collective defence.
09:05And this is the deterrence, and this is the only reason we're still in peace.
09:09The frozen Russian state assets, that's back on the table.
09:12Has Belgium indicated that it's willing to move on this at all?
09:15Ukraine's support loan solved some of the problems, but now with the increased expenditure for the war purposes in Ukraine,
09:23we see that there are additional needs.
09:25Plus, there are civilian needs for the energy, for the transport sector, and just to be resilient and withstand all
09:32these ballistic missile attacks.
09:34So there is the huge gaps in the budget, the main security challenge for our generation that we have to
09:40solve.
09:41So we have to find the resources, how we will do this.
09:44And we know that the frozen assets is one of those options.
09:48So we have to go in depth.
09:50You've been there before, though, you see, that's the thing.
09:52You know, the Belgians are looking for limitless guarantees.
09:55Starting positions are different than they were one year ago.
09:59So now we know the questions that we have to answer, how to share the potential consequences, how to share
10:07the burden, how to manage the risks.
10:10So when we are going into the discussion about managing the risks, it's good.
10:15Should Germany give Taurus long range missiles now to Ukraine, given as part of the response to what has happened
10:22in Germany?
10:23That could be one of the one of the options with direct link.
10:27I think that what Ukraine needs right now, some technologies and some cooperation.
10:32Is it on the table? Do you speak to Minister Badeful about it?
10:35Yeah, it's more for the German colleague to comment on this.
10:39But what concerns the defense industry cooperation of Ukraine and some allies and also with Germany.
10:45But a good response, maybe. No news on the Patriot defense missile systems in the United States.
10:49We all know that interceptors are really scarce now in the market.
10:55But Ukraine could manufacture themselves.
10:57Yes, but with the current technologies, that would take some time until they will build the production lines.
11:02What we need, we need other technologies.
11:05But the U.S. hasn't delivered on the licensing of it yet?
11:08Not yet. But I think the very fact that we are discussing it publicly one year ago, that would be
11:14absolutely impossible.
11:15Now we understand that the physical limitations and the production capacity is a problem.
11:20And Ukrainians can solve this.
11:23But the Americans are not delivering on the licensing anyway.
11:25That's the issue.
11:26Yeah, I hope that in upcoming months before the winter season, there will be the solutions that Ukrainians themselves will
11:35be able to convince their society that they will be better off this winter.
11:41Because it would be impossible to live in the conditions as they currently are.
11:45So there is still talks about maybe getting the Patriots?
11:47It is definitely. This was not a part of this Gimnik meeting.
11:51Okay, brilliant.
11:52Anastasia Budris, thank you very much for joining us on Uranus.
11:54Thank you very much for having me here. Thank you.
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