L. Linkevičius: defense changes in the Northern region are a turning point for the Baltic region as well

“Maybe it’s less talked about, but when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Recep Tayyip Erdohan – BNS) directly linked all that support to Sweden to the US F-16 fighter program, there was a big debate about who would make what decision first – whether the Americans would decide first of those fighters, will the Turks decide on support for Sweden first. At one point, there was not much agreement, I don’t know how this dispute ended, apparently some kind of compromise was found, one has to hope. But here, the whole story almost came true before this discussion,” L. Linkevičius told the LRT TV show “Dienos Tema” on Wednesday.

According to him, the defense changes in the Nordic region are not only a turning point for Finland and Sweden, “but also for all of us”.

“So this is a huge turning point and we must see what is happening now in Scandinavia, in the Nordic countries, as a direct increase in Lithuania’s security guarantors. Another no less important region contributes to what we said earlier about the Baltic countries and Poland in the context of NATO defense, planning, and exercises. This is how we should assess it – this is a turning point not only for Sweden, but also for all of us,” the ambassador asserted.

According to L. Linkevičius, after accepting Finland and especially after signing the agreements with the Americans, the Finns allow the use of 15 bases, the Swedes too; “And let’s take a map – and Gotland, the Swedish island, is 200 kilometers from our coast. It is closer from there than to the capital.”

According to L. Linkevičius, it is important to know the attitude and mood of the Americans also because they, of course, operate in the context of the Alliance, but they also do so autonomously.

“There are not so many of those deployed forces in Lithuania, although they are permanent, which is also very important, it has not been the case for a long time. There are more of them in Poland, now we also see them in Scandinavia. We have to see all this as a huge support for what is happening in the context of NATO and, of course, the United States, bilaterally. We can only hope that this situation will not change after the political changes in the USA”, thought L. Linkevičius.

Sweden and Finland abandoned decades of military non-alignment in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. Finland joined the defense alliance in April, while Sweden is still awaiting the approval of NATO members Turkey and Hungary.