Leonidas Donskis and Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Opinion

Opinion: Is Mikhail Khodorkovsky the devil’s advocate? II

This January, the Vilnius-based Eastern Europe Studies Centre organized another big two-day international event for experts, politicians and intellectuals. The centrepiece of the second day of the conference was an address by none other than Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He was introduced by liberal Lithuanian thinker Leonidas Donskis who had taken great interest in supporting the prisoner during his term as a member of the European Parliament and had even received Khodorkovsky’s thank-you letter from prison. The prisoner had written he was touched by Donskis’ belief that he was fated for an important role in the history and politics of Russia. […]

Lilia Shevtsova
Uncategorized

Kremlinologist Lilia Shevtsova: Putin is a mediocre leader pushing his country to collapse

Lilia Shevtsova, a Russia expert at the Brookings Institution, says that Vladimir Putin is a far cry from the shrewd and effective leader everyone, friends and foes alike, take him to be. On the contrary, she says, the Russian president is a shallow mediocrity who has not got a clue how to avert his country’s imminent collapse. […]

No Picture
Uncategorized

Stratfor: Poland and Baltic states will continue to promote Ukraine’s Western ties

As the standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine continues into 2015, the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will come to play an increasingly important role. Even before the crisis, the three Baltic states — as well as neighboring Poland — were among the most active EU member states attempting to bring Ukraine closer to the West and to challenge Russia’s role in the former Soviet periphery. Their efforts along these lines will intensify this year. Ultimately, however, more powerful players in the standoff will limit the impacts of their efforts, particularly Germany and the United States. […]

Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko
Opinion

Opinion: So long sucker or how Putin’s propaganda succeeded in playing the extremists

In the 1950s, Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Forbes Nash invented a Machiavellian game entitled So Long Suckers. To win, a player had to game, and ultimately betray, his adversaries. Today, as they sit in frozen trenches in what was once aptly named the Wild Fields, it looks as if the soldiers of the ‘Union of People’s Republic’ are the ones that have been played. […]

EU Council summit
European Union

EU leaders agree on restricting investments in Russian-annexed Crimea

EU leaders have agreed on new strict restrictions on EU investments and business development in Russia‘s annexed Crimea, the Lithuanian president’s office said on Friday. […]

Permanent Representative of Lithuania, Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaitė
Foreign affairs

Lithuanian envoy at UN: Human rights violations in Ukraine must be investigated

The Permanent Mission of Lithuania to the United Nations together with non-governmental organizations in the margins of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on 11 December held a round-table discussion on the role of the International Criminal Court in ensuring accountability for the ongoing human rights violations in Ukraine. […]

Charles Ries
Foreign affairs

Charles Ries: Lithuania has security stake in US-EU trade agreement

There are many misconceptions about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that is being negotiated between the United States and the European Union, says Charles Ries, vice president of the Rand Corporation. […]

Vykintas Pugačiauskas
Opinion

Opinion: Reality check for Russia

If there was anything surprising in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annual address to the Federal Assembly it was that there was nothing new in it. It seems that slowly, very slowly, something is dawning on the Kremlin: a gloomy realization that Vladimir Putin is no saviour. […]

Lithuanian Ambassador Žygimantas Pavilionis questioning the funding and a strategy to fight Russian propaganda at UABA meeting.  Photo Ludo Segers
Foreign affairs

Lithuanian ambassador Žygimantas Pavilionis: We do not invest in our relations with the United States

Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States of America Žygimantas Pavilionis thinks that the US administration under President Barack Obama has been naive in wishing to “reset” relations with Russia, but this is the trap that every new president falls into. He hopes, however, that Obama’s successor – be it Hillary Clinton or someone else – will have a better grasp on geopolitical realities of Eastern Europe. […]

Defence

US ambassador to NATO: Russia, not US troops in Baltics are destabilizing security

The security situation in Europe is destabilized by Russia‘s aggression in Ukraine and irresponsible flights of its military planes rather than several hundred American troops stationed in the Baltic states, US Ambassador to NATO Douglas E. Lute said on Monday. […]