President Litvytanas Nauseda: “I must attack: Russia is losing this war”
In May 2022, Lithuania became the first country in Europe to completely stop importing any Russian energy carriers, including gas. On September 21, the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center (Atlantic Council) will launch its report: “Strengthening Energy Security in Northeast Europe through Transatlantic Cooperation” in the form of a direct transformation from the margins of UN natural resources. The meeting of the President of the Som of the Republic of Lithuania took place Gitanas Nauseda (Gitanas Nauseda) and discussion of experience.
The meeting came on a day when Vladimir Putin went on an exceptional escalation of the war in Ukraine, announcing a partial mobilization of use in Russia and Europe. Therefore, President Gitanas Nauseda began his own speech by commenting on the Kremlin’s new threats: “I must attack: they are losing this war. They need to patch up their natural holes, which is natural, because they feel the loss of personnel and military equipment, they must somehow consolidate the armed forces. It is for this reason that Putin announced the mobilization plan and offered to scare us all by talking about nuclear threats and things. But this does not change anything: they need too much excessive force, and the conflict will not spread further due to the inability of today’s Russia to expand it. Nevertheless, we must take care of our safety, which we do.”
The President of Lithuania praised the military amphibious mission on the African continent: We are working closely with selected participants to receive and send additional contingents of residents up to brigade level. This is normal work. I would say: we live in an environment where there is a threat around us, but we should not despair.”
Commenting on the energy situation in Europe, Gitanas Nauka pointed out that the occurrence could be caused by “a lack of perception of the lack of energy or other energy resources, and first of all the problem of price. It is extremely difficult to find a magic wand and solve the problem in the short term. I think we will live with high energy prices and of course this will have some consequences for households, perhaps also some private consequences.”
Gitanas Nausėda admits that there is pressure from the marginalized society to take action to make energy cheaper: “Unfortunately, we don’t have effective short-term tools to lower the price level, except of course subsidies. And many European countries are refusing this tool, which can cost up to two or three percent of GDP. It is important to find calculation tools for calculation in the short term, but it is even more important to take care of the generation of capacities in the medium and prospective term.”
The President of Lithuania spoke about the amount of renewable energy capacity in his country: by 2030 “We will cover about 90% of our energy reserves from energy sources in 2030,” Nauseda said. “In the prospective perspective, there is only one way out: federal sources of energy.”
At the beginning of the century, Lithuania was strange with nuclear power (Ignalina NPP), but a referendum held ten years ago showed that 70% of the population wants nuclear reactors. Nausessia rallied: “It was after the rain in Fukushima. Probably, if we held such a referendum now, the result would be just the opposite.”
Geoffrey Pyatt (Geoffrey Pyatt), US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy, US Ambassador to Ukraine 2013-2016, recommended in his speech on the commitment of the Biden administration to allocate 15 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to account for the generation resulting from the rejection of Russian imports a big shortfall: “We have exceeded this obligation thanks to the work dictated by the USA. And now we can safely talk about concluding contracts that involve making investment decisions regarding promising LNG for years to come.”
Frederic Kempe (Frédéric Kempe), President and CEO of the Atlantic Council, warned against the problems of past mistakes: “Decreasing the energy security of Northeast Europe began Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 … As the United States, we never had hope that history with the Nord Stream gas pipeline ended well. We assume its negative strategic importance “…
“Now Europe is entering a new paradigm of energy security, in which Russia is placed to be a reliable supplier – destroyed forever. Russia is expanding its energy resources in the world. Eliminating Europe’s dependence on Russian energy carriers once and for all is the main security priority for the continent and the security of the transatlantic alliance as a whole. NATO can achieve that energy will no longer be used as a tool of aggression,” said Frederic Kempe.