September 13, Minister of National Defence Arvydas Anušauskas visited Latvia to discuss regional security and defence with Baltic and Polish counterparts and Minsters of Foreign Affairs at a meeting in Riga. The eight meeting Minsters addressed the running challenges the region faced, the response to the hybrid operation waged by the Lukashenko regime, and Exercise Zapad 2021. According to A. Anušauskas, the illegal migrant border crossing crisis caused by the hybrid operation teaches valuable lessons.
“This crisis has highlighted how essential a coordinated united response from across all state agencies is. As well as the allied solidarity. Our allies understand that the hybrid attack is implemented against the whole EU, not just our region. We thank Estonia, Latvia and Poland for the quick reaction and support to Lithuania. Such a crisis teaches us all a valuable lesson how we should get ready for threats of this kind,” said A. Anušauskas.
Minister underscored that the hybrid attack was not a design of Alexander Lukashenko alone: Russia and Belarus coordinated their actions. A. Anušauskas expressed his delight that the EU and NATO were intensely coordinating as well, for example, the NATO Counter Hybrid Support Team started the work in Lithuania by request of the Lithuanian Government on September 7: it will generate recommendations on the ways to make countermeasures against such threats more effective.
NATO agenda was in the focus of the meeting. According to A. Anušauskas NATO has to keep strengthening collective defence by means of defence planning, capability development and readiness improvement, and also, importantly, by maintaining 2 percent of GDP defence financing and coordination of NATO and EU requirements.
“Regional cooperation between the Baltic states and Poland is crucial. Joint procurement, synchronized capability planning, intelligence exchange are among the important directions for cooperation,” added Minister A. Anušauskas.
In the second half of the day, Foreign Minsters stayed in Riga to discuss foreign and security policy and regional cooperation and Defence Ministers took part at Distinguished Visitors Day of Exercise Nameisis at Latvia’s Adazi Training Area, viewed Latvia’s military capabilities, and joined a Latvian Transatlantic Organisation (LATO) discussion on regional security.
Photo: courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland
