Prime Minister: we need to help Ukraine win this war - there is no middle ground

In the Battlegrounds episode of Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė and host Lt Gen H.R. McMaster, former Adviser to the President of the United States and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, discuss European security in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the preservation of the international rules-based order, and solidarity between democracies.

‘There is an idea that we must not let Russia loose, because this is humiliating, and Putin has to save his face. But Putin is not one of us, he does not have to face neither his population, nor free press, opposition or free trial - nothing of the things that we have in this part of the world. If he wants to portray something as victory with the help of his propaganda media, he will be successful. (...) We must do whatever it takes so that Russia loses this war, there shouldn’t be a way of going around this concept and saying that we should do something in between’, said Prime Minister Šimonytė.

The Prime Minister says that the war Russia waged in Europe has led to a significant and positive shift in the way countries view security, as seen in the rising figures for defence spending.

‘This is a very significant shift, and it is happening for a reason because all of a sudden, when we see what is happening in Ukraine, we understand that we have to defend what we have created, what Western Europe created almost 80 years after WWII, my country - 32 years after occupation. The years of increasing prosperity, building connectivity, becoming richer and more experienced’, said the Head of Government.

The Prime Minister points out the importance of countering Russia’s widespread disinformation and gaslighting about the global war consequences being the direct result of the sanctions imposed on Russia and not of the war of its own making, also its false narrative about NATO being a threat to Russia.

‘Putin often says that 'we have to fight this war', because NATO would be expanding towards boarders of Russia. Which is not true. Because the forward presence appeared in the region only after he invaded Crimea and Donbas. We found it very complicated for many years to persuade our colleagues in NATO that threat is real. Now we see Madrid summit conclusions, where it is written black on white, that Russia is a threat. We've been waiting for this constatation for quite many years and now we have it. And it means that there is a need of strengthening NATO eastern flank’, said Šimonytė.

Watch the full conversation in the video below: