Lithuanian President Grybauskaitė Equates Russia with Global Evil

Taking a strong position in support of neighboring Ukraine, President Dalia Grybauskaitė of Lithuania denounced Russia as being as dangerous as North Korea and Syria for bullying and invading Ukraine three years ago.

Speaking at the 72^nd UN General Assembly on Tuesday, September 19, Grybauskaitė issued a global warning against Russian aggression because of its Zapad 2017 military exercises in regions adjacent to the x-captive nations.

“As we speak, around 100,000 Russian troops are engaged in offensive military exercises Zapad 2017 on the borders of Baltic States, Poland and even in the Arctic. The Kremlin is rehearsing aggressive scenarios against its neighbors, training its army to attack the West. The exercise is also part of information warfare aimed at spreading uncertainty and fear. Even more disturbingly, Zapad exercise is just one symptom of Kremlin’s inability to finally end its hatred towards the West.” she declared, reinforcing the common bond among former subjugated nations of Russia’s imperial prison.

Grybauskaitė repeated a theme raised by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at the 17^th Annual Yalta European Strategy annual meeting. (See previous blogpost.)

The Lithuanian leader further chastised Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, for violating the UN Charter by attacking Georgia, illegally annexing Crimea and directly participating in the war in Eastern Ukraine.

“The Kremlin’s arsenal does not stop at conventional weapons. Russia continues to meddle in elections, conducts cyber-attacks and uses its sputniks to spread fake news and destabilizing propaganda,” she said in the course of an unusually short delegate’s address at the General Assembly.

Noting that energy blackmail has been a longtime weapon of choice for Russia, Grybauskaitė said Moscow is building in Belarus, just 40 kilometers from Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital, the unsafe Astravets nuclear power plant “as a geopolitical weapon that fails to comply with basic international nuclear standards.”

In her remarks, she cast an accusatory stone at the international community for allowing Russian and other abuses of basic international norms to continue. She decried this state of affairs is the result of the world’s collective failure to condemn and properly react to violations. International organizations do not have the courage to enforce the rules that they create while drawing boundaries that they pretend don’t exist, she said.

“This has to change. Bullies are aggressive precisely because they are weak and insecure. That is why we must stop being passive observers and start calling things by their own names,” she said. “Aggression cannot make anyone stronger. It can never earn anyone even a drop of respect. The only thing the aggression will bring is contempt, shame and condemnation.”

Grybauskaitė said member-states must assume their share of the responsibility and not let fear close their eyes to violators because criminal states will be encouraged to increase acts of terror and abuses.

“We must learn to read the warning signs, because abuse of human rights, nationalistic rhetoric and suppression of free speech explode into violence if ignored,” she said.

Turning to the UN, she reminded her fellow delegates that the global body was formed to save the world from wars, however, “it has failed to fulfill this promise.”

“Now we face the choice: either we give this organization the voice to rise against the abuse or we will make it irrelevant,” she said.

The Lithuanian president’s firm advocacy on behalf of the former captive nations will hopefully give rise to a new coalition in support of freedom, liberty and democracy in the face of ongoing, virulent Russian belligerence.