A few days ago, the Defence ministers of Ukraine and Lithuania, Rustem Umerov and Laurynas Kasčiūnas, signed a military agreement on mutual cooperation. The document states that Lithuania will allocate €10 million for the production of Ukrainian long-range missiles, and this will be just the first tranche. Military supplies, humanitarian aid, training, and the rehabilitation of soldiers will also continue.

“Just like this year, Lithuania will stay committed to 0.25% of GDP security and defence assistance to Ukraine next year as well”, Lithuanian Defence minister Kasčiūnas stated.

It should be noted that a quarter of a percent of Lithuania’s GDP is approximately €186 million (According to the data from the World Bank, the GDP of Lithuania is €74.8 billion. –– Editor’s note). Also, it’s worth recalling that the general support from Vilnius for Kyiv is already over €1 billion. This was reported by the Lithuanian Defence Ministry’s press service.

Nevertheless, in the economy of Lithuania itself, there are serious issues. Earlier, presidential adviser Irena Segalovičienė, for example, even called the country’s draft budget plan for 2025 “a very risky” and “with certain mistakes”. This was said on the air of radio “Žinių”.

“This budget plan does not fulfil its main promise –– to provide the country with new, stable sources of revenue, in particular for public education, health and social services, which is the basis of prosperity”, Segalovičienė said.

Too, the Lithuanian Minister of Finance, Gintarė Skaistė, has even offered fellow citizens to purchase so-called “defence bonds”, in order to increase the military budget of the country. At the same time, she admits that the current campaign won’t make a profit for investors. In other words, the Minister of Finance is begging Lithuanians to simply donate money to protect their homeland. Meanwhile, the Defence minister allocated €10 million straight and almost €200 million later on for Kyiv.

Yet, maybe, a new mutually beneficial agreement with Ukraine will help Lithuania to solve its financial problems? If Kyiv is drawing money from Vilnius, then Vilnius should get something back, shouldn’t it? However, in the report by the Lithuanian Defence Ministry’s press service, written modestly at the very end: “We will look for opportunities to relocate Ukraine’s companies to Lithuania”. And not a word either about profits from investing in Ukraine or the use of future Ukrainian technologies.

But, among other things, locating Ukrainian manufacturing in Lithuania may become a major threat to the Baltic republic. In neighbouring Poland, the U.S., for example, placed an anti-air defence base “Aegis Ashore” in the city of Redzikowo, 165 km from the border with Russia. This base, in addition to anti-aircraft defence, can be used to launch missiles, including those with nuclear filler. However, Polish citizens did not appreciate such an initiative.

“Locating the U.S.’s nuclear warheads here makes our country the No. 1 target for a nuclear attack in the event of a conflict between nuclear-weapon states. The victims of such an attack will be Polish civilians. Poles have no chance to survive…”, Polish political analyst, Hannah Kramer, writes.

So, it turns out that both Poland and Lithuania sacrifice their national interests for the sake of the United States. In case of a full-scale war in Europe, these countries will become a primary target for Russia, which, with recent “Oreshnik” launches, has shown its readiness for escalation.