Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, dear colleagues, first of all, thank you for your invitation. It's really a great honour for me to be with you today.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for your very kind introduction and remarks regarding our bilateral co-operation.
We Lithuanians value Canada as a great friend of Lithuania. Thank you for your invaluable support for our independence and security. We also value you as a like-minded country with which we have really excellent co-operation in many fields.
We are proud of the Lithuanian community in Canada, which greatly contributes to our co-operation and strengthens our friendship. We highly value your great contribution to the Baltic states, including Lithuania's security. Actually, security and defence are areas we would like to even expand and deepen co-operation with Canada.
Let me also express our appreciation for your strong support and development contribution for Ukraine. Your Prime Minister's visit last Saturday to Kyiv was a great symbol of Canada's unwavering support to Ukraine.
Ladies and gentlemen, in four weeks, we will host the NATO summit in Vilnius. I would like to share some thoughts and views with you on what all allies have to achieve and what should be discussed at the summit.
First of all, the alliance must substantially strengthen deterrence and forward defence in the eastern flank. Last year, in Madrid, the allies very clearly stated, “Russia is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.”
The security reality after February 24 last year demanded a fundamental rethinking of NATO's deterrence and defence posture from tripwire strategy to denial for any adversary any opportunity of attack. In order to substantially strengthen NATO's deterrence and forward defences, the allies in Madrid committed to “deploying additional robust in-place combat-ready forces on NATO’s eastern flank, to be scaled up from the existing battalion-sized battle groups to brigades, where and when required....”
We are very grateful to all allies, in particular our enhanced forward presence framework and contributing nations, including Canada, who demonstrated a commitment to collective defence by sending additional capabilities to our region. However, the alliance has to do more in order to be ready for any scenario, including a no-notice scenario.
In the foreseeable future, Russia will remain the most significant and direct threat to NATO, to our alliance. Russia is not giving up its aggressive stance towards neighbours and the west. For example, in January, Russia announced that over the next three years, it plans to increase the manpower of its army by 40%, up to 1.5 million, create a new army corps and upgrade seven brigades into motorized infantry divisions.
The Russia-Belarus political and military integration is a fait accompli. Belarus is permanently stationing Russian troops and is complicit in its aggression against Ukraine. A recently signed agreement between Russia and Belarus on the deployment of nuclear arms in the territory of Belarus also calls for strengthening of our posture in all domains.
These facts increase further the strategic importance of the so-called Suwałki gap that connects the Baltic states with the rest of NATO and clearly demonstrates the need for functioning forward defences.
Enhanced air and missile defence postures, pre-positioning of stocks, ammunition and equipment and a persistent presence of additional robust in-place combat-ready brigade-size forces would signal a firm readiness to defend every inch of allied territory at all times.
In this regard, I would like to take this opportunity to briefly inform you about our national commitments.
We remain steadfast in continuing with high defence spending, 2.52% of GDP, with increased investments into military infrastructure, armed forces modernization and scaling up the level of national military forces to the level of division.
Second, in Vilnius we have to find a way to anchor Ukraine to the Euro-Atlantic security order. Article 10 of the Washington treaty refers to one main criteria for NATO membership, which is the ability of the state to contribute to the security of the Euro-Atlantic area. Ukraine has already proved that it is capable of fighting against Russia, which is the most significant and direct threat to the Euro-Atlantic community.
Independent, democratic and strong Ukraine, as a full-fledged member of NATO, is vital to our security and stability. Therefore, in Vilnius we have to confirm that Ukraine will become a member of NATO and set a clear pathway for Ukraine's membership in NATO. We also have to expand and deepen existing NATO-Ukraine co-operation and confirm that we will continue to support Ukraine as long and as much as needed.
Very briefly, there are two other important topics on Vilnius. If we want to achieve our strategic goals, we have to agree on adequate defence funding and discuss the defence investment pledge renewal and setting 2% of GDP as a minimum.
Second, there is the NATO AP4 Indo-Pacific co-operation. As Jens Stoltenberg, NATO's Secretary General, stated in Japan in January of this year, “transatlantic and Indo-Pacific security is deeply interconnected”. I would even say it's indivisible. At the Vilnius summit, we must strengthen the partnership with our Indo-Pacific partners to increase our resilience and security supply chains and to counter hybrid and cyber threats from the increasingly malign authoritarian countries.
I'll end very briefly on accountability. One of the reasons Russia is behaving so brutally in Ukraine—killing innocent people, including children, and destroying and demolishing cities and villages—and is being so increasingly aggressive towards us is that Russia has never been brought to justice and punished for its terrible crimes against other nations. Their feeling of immunity lets them think they are free to do what they want. We have to change this and bring Russia to justice for its war crimes in Ukraine. In this regard, the ICC will play a crucial role, but we also have to establish a special tribunal for Russia's crimes of aggression.
In this regard, listening to your discussions on the Wagner Group, I would like to inform you about a document that was approved by our Lithuanian Parliament on March 14 of this year, “Resolution on Designating the Private Military Company Wagner as a Terrorist Organisation”. I would like to quote two sentences from this document.
First, the Lithuanian Parliament “notes that the Russian Federation’s private military company Wagner is a terrorist organisation and that its members and mercenaries pose a threat to state and public security”. Second, the Lithuanian Parliament “calls on other states to recognise the Russian Federation’s private military company Wagner as a terrorist organisation”.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
