Opinion
Opinion
Opinion
Opinion: Looking into the Far East – how Japan might affect our energy security
Once Japan restarts its nuclear capabilities, it will reduce its reliance on LNG. As a result, global LNG prices should drop, benefiting European states that are eyeing LNG as an alternative to Russian gas. This is particularly crucial for such Eastern European states as Lithuania and Poland that have placed great hopes in their liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in Klaipėda and Świnoujście. […]
Opinion
Opinion
Opinion
Opinion: What Putin intends to provoke in the Baltic countries
Just as the purpose of terror is to terrorize, the purpose of provocation is to provoke – and if the targets of a provocation understand what the one engaging in it wants to provoke, they will be in a much better position not only to prepare for it but to avoid falling into the trap the provocateur hopes to set and to deny him a victory. […]
Opinion
Opinion: What does Russia’s trade embargo remind us of?
This summer, Russia banned imports of agricultural products from the European Union countries for one year, while various sanctions on Lithuanian dairy and meat products have been applied for a long time already. Ban on Lithuanian foods, excessive customs checks on Lithuanian trucks or other market restrictions are the means of political pressure. […]
Opinion
Opinion: The EU and Russia – how to obtain independence legitimately
Once again there is an air of crisis across Europe. […]
Opinion
Opinion: Post-Referendum Blues
My Lithuanian friend Diana is a mature student at one of the two universities in my home town, Dundee in Scotland. “Diana and David,” she says to me, “we ought to form an international pop duo.” “David and Diana would sound better,” I try to persuade her. […]
Opinion
Opinion
Opinion: NATO promises to Russia? Which promises?
Alea iacta est. NATO has agreed on the formation of a special ‘spearhead force’ (officially: Very High Readiness Joint Task Force) that, if necessary, will offer the eastern member states (additional) protection against Russia’s imperialist whims. After twenty years of peace keeping operations and crisis management on the Balkans and in exotic places further away, the alliance will refocus on its original task, as anchored in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty: collective defence. […]
Opinion
UK minister of Europe: EU sanctions are necessary, effective and timely
This week the European Union imposed further sanctions on Russia. This decision followed months of destabilisation of Ukraine by Russia, and months of political and diplomatic efforts to restore peace and stability. […]
Opinion
Opinion: Where Putin will be stopped?
How far will the aggressive regime of Vladimir Putin go? I put this question in June to my former colleague who is ambassador of one of the foreign countries. The answer was simple and precise – Putin will go as far as the Western States will allow it. […]
Opinion
Opinion: Tomaševski’s path from Polish identity to Putin‘s “Russian World”
You cannot even imagine how painful it is for a real dzūkas [south-east Lithuanian] to see reports about people in Žemaitija [west Lithuania] picking mushrooms by hundreds and asking what to do with such wealth, while our pine forests, growing on the mainland sand dunes, are dry and bare from the summer heat. Only on the day of St. Bartholomew were we blessed with some all-day rain; after that rain it will be finally possible to go mushroom hunting. […]
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Opinion
Opinion: Putin forces West to choose between Ukraine and Middle East (I)
When on 15 January 1991, the United Nations issued an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to withdraw troops from occupied Kuwait, it was clear for Lithuania that the Soviet Union might take advantage of this event and hit back at our independence. […]
Opinion
Opinion: Keeping the Baltic identity alive
The 25th anniversary of the Baltic Way gives food for thought about a number of things: the neo-fascist threats from Russia, about the place of idols and sculptures in Grūtas Park and the museum reminiscent of the occupation of Lithuania, about the security of Lithuania and Ukraine after a quarter of a century since the restoring statehood and about the Baltic identity. […]
Opinion
Opinion: To understand Putin, read Orwell
Anyone who wants to understand the current Russian position on Ukraine would do well to begin with George Orwell’s classic, 1984, writes Timothy Snyder, Housum professor of History at Yale University, for the Politico. […]
Opinion
Edward Lucas: Russia is winning
I have been dealing with European security for more than thirty years, as an activist during the Cold War, as a journalist, and at think-tanks1. […]
Opinion
Opinion: Stability in the Baltic Sea region
The Baltic Sea region has today become the main geographic “fault line” between NATO and Russia. The probably most important single factor to enhance security and stability in the region is to make it credible that NATO intends, and is able, to defend the Baltic States. […]
Opinion