Lithuania’s Prime Minister Ready to Send Troops to Ukraine for Excersies

Lithuania is ready to send its troops to carry out exercises on the territory of Ukraine, but Kyiv’s officials have not yet sent a corresponding request.

Lithuania’s Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė stated this to the Financial Times.

Ingrida Šimonytė said that she possessed parliamentary authorization to deploy troops to Ukraine for training objectives, an idea previously discussed by her government. However, she noted that Kyiv had not yet made such a request.

Šimonytė understands that Russia could consider it a provocation, but added: “If we just thought about the Russian response, then we could not send anything. Every second week you hear that somebody will be nuked.”

This week Russia has announced military drills involving simulated use of tactical nuclear weapons. This came after the Russian Defense Ministry claimed Western officials made “provocative threats.”

Shimonite doubted that Russia would actually use nuclear weapons against Ukraine since radioactive fallout would also affect Russian territory as well. “Usually the wind blows from west to east,” she noted.

According to Šimonytė, Russia has been intensifying attacks on Ukraine’s civilian and critical infrastructure. “Russia is trying to provoke a new wave of people fleeing Ukraine because there are no basic utilities and no basic services,” Šimonytė said.