Press conference

President Nausėda dear Gitanas, it is a pleasure to welcome you to NATO Headquarters. Lithuania is a highly valued Ally making significant contributions to our shared security.

You host a German-led NATO forward land force, and I welcome that Germany is permanently stationing a brigade now in Lithuania. By 2027 this brigade will reach full operational capability with around 4800 soldiers. This will significantly strengthen our deterrence and our defence on the eastern flank of our Alliance.

Lithuania is also a leader in defence spending, investing over 3% of GDP, a figure set to rise to 3.5% soon, and this demonstrates your commitment to NATO's collective defence. And I want to highlight your leadership in stepping up defence production. The recent agreement between Lithuania and Rheinmetall to establish a 155 millimetre artillery shell factory in Lithuania – I think it is in Baisogala – highlights your commitment to ramping up defence production. Lithuania is also a strong supporter of Ukraine. You have committed over one billion in military assistance since Russia's full scale invasion, and you have pushed for all of us to do more, particularly to invest in Ukraine's defence industry. At a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels earlier this month, Allies committed to providing more ammunition and air defences as Russia expands its aggression with North Korean support.

Allies remain committed to delivering on the financial pledge of 40 billion euros in security assistance for Ukraine this year, and the NATO command in Wiesbaden for security assistance and training for Ukraine is now up and running. But we must go further to decisively change the course of this war and I know that I can count on Lithuania's support.

So President, dear Gitanas, thank you again for Lithuania’s steadfast commitments to our Alliance, and I look forward to continuing our work together. Again, thank you so much for visiting and the floor is yours.

Olivier Baube, AFP - Thank you, Secretary General. Olivier Baube from AFP. I wanted to ask you a question about the meeting you will have tonight. You have invited a certain number of European leaders and the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. As far as I understood it is to discuss next steps in the war in Ukraine. One of these next steps could be a ceasefire and I wanted to know if NATO will help this eventual ceasefire to be implemented, and if yes, how? Thank you. And for the President - Mr. President, are you concerned that you are not invited, as far as I know, you are not invited to this meeting tonight at Mr. Rutte’s residence? Thank you.

NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte - First on the logistics. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, is visiting Brussels because he has a meeting tomorrow with the European Council. And we thought it would be good to have a dinner for the two of us. So we will do that tonight, to discuss everything to do with Ukraine at the moment and how to make sure that we can do the max to get him into a position of strength to one day when he decides starting to talk with the Russians on how to end all of this. But obviously this has to be Ukrainian-led, and only in a position of strength. And because other Allies are also in town, it seemed right to have a couple of them over in that meeting to discuss particularly two things. One is, what can we do to get more air defence and other weapons into Ukraine? And this is urgently needed. As you know, the Ukrainians have calibrated that they need about 19 extra air defence systems to protect their critical energy infrastructure. But also, more generally, they need more support to make sure that they can get into a position of strength and to be able to roll back what is happening at the moment. And secondly, to discuss the economy. That's why also the President of the Commission and the President of the European Council will participate, because there is a lot to be discussed in terms of how to support the Ukrainian economy. On your other question about all these rumours going around, what a peace deal could look like, and security guarantees and all that – you know my position. I believe what we should focus on now is making sure that Ukraine gets to this position of strength. And that discussing all of this, which comes after that moment, starts when Zelensky and Putin and others would sit at the table, is for them. And if we now start to discuss amongst ourselves what a peace deal could look like, we make it so easy for the Russians. Because they sit there in their reclining chairs listening to our discussions, smoking a nice cigar whilst watching all this TV footage and I don't think that is helpful. And of course, this is unavoidable in democracies, that we discuss all these things out in the open, but I think we would be very wise to put some lid on this and focus on the business at hand. And the business at hand is to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs to prevent Putin from winning and for Ukraine to prevail. That is our ambition. That's what you need to achieve, because our values are at stake, but also it has a direct connection to our own security and safety going forward.

President Nausėda answers

NATO Spokesperson, Farah Dakhlallah - Thank you. We'll go to Lithuanian public broadcaster.

Mindaugas Laukagalis, Lithuania National Radio and Television - Thank you for this opportunity. Mindaugas Laukagalis from Lithuania National Radio and Television. A question for the President and Secretary General. Ukraine say that the best security guarantee for the country is NATO membership, but we see that some NATO member states are not willing to provide this and there are a lot of talks about possible peacekeeping mission in Ukraine. And I know, Secretary General, you said that you don't like to speculate about the future, but still, many countries are discussing it. The Polish are discussing it, German are discussing it, French are discussing it. So I'm wondering, do you see this possible peacekeeping mission as an alternative to Ukraine's membership in NATO? And also your general thoughts about the possibility if NATO would be ready to contribute to this peacekeeping mission? Thank you.

NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte - As you know, in 2008 it was decided that Ukraine should become a member of NATO, and only six months ago, during the Summit in Washington, under the leadership of my predecessor, Jens Stoltenberg, it was decided that it is irreversible path to NATO membership, and at this moment, Lithuania and other Allies are building that bridge by agreeing on bilateral security agreements with Ukraine, but also through the setting up of the Command in Wiesbaden, the joint agency in Poland we are setting up to capture all the lessons from what is happening in Ukraine, and, of course, the 40 billion dollar [euro] pledge, which is concrete military support coming getting into Ukraine. So that's how we build that bridge. It is also clear for me, and I think for all Allies that Putin has no vote and no veto on Ukrainian membership of NATO. Now, what exactly the trajectory will be over the coming months, and how this will play yes or no a part in whatever talks will take place in the future. Of course, we have to discuss and, but before we get there, the first priority has to be for us to do everything we can to make sure, as I said to your colleague, that Ukraine is in a position of strength, and at the moment, the front line is moving from the east to the west - we don't like that. It's very slowly, and the Russians are paying a huge price for this, because they are losing more people and getting more Russians wounded than ever before since February 2022. But still, that front line is not moving eastwards, it is moving westwards, and we have to do everything to make sure that Ukraine is in that position of strength, that is now the first priority.

NATO Spokesperson, Farah Dakhlallah - Thank you. We'll take one last question from also Lithuanian media.

Justina Ilkevičiūtė, LRT - Yes. Thank you very much. Justina Ilkevičiūtė from LRT. It took more than 10 years for NATO countries to reach that 2% spending on defence target, and last week, US Secretary General urged to agree on a new target. But my question what - for both of you - what would happen if countries would reach that new target so slowly as they did before? And what does it mean for Baltic countries, for Lithuania, because Baltic countries are often named as those countries which could be attacked first, for Russia. Thank you very much.

NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte - I know that it feels like that, but that's why I always have some argument with this notion of frontline states. Because I come from the Netherlands, you would also argue that Rotterdam and Amsterdam are frontline cities, that London is a frontline city, that Washington is a frontline city, because when you look at the latest technologies and possibilities there are in modern warfare. It's not only the so-called frontline states who are on the front line. So all of us are in this together. Because the risk of this notion of frontline states could also be that you have a sort of first and second-class members of NATO. And I hate that whole idea, and we should all hate that idea. We are all frontline states. That's notion, notion number one. And I came to the conclusion, based not only on what I'm getting from intelligence gathering, but just from open sources, that this whole notion that we are safe, yes, for now, we are safe. NATO can defend itself, and anyone attacking us will be confronted with the full NATO onslaught, fighting back and making sure that he or she who tries to attack us will never do this again. But I'm not so sure about four or five years from now, when you look at the huge defence production taking place in Russia, in China, the investments the Russians are making at the moment. And this was my plea last week, that if we stick to the 2% pledge, yes, we are safe now absolutely, and let there be no doubt about it, but in four or five years, we might be in big difficulty, and that's why we need to do two things now. We have to decide fast on spending more, and we have to discuss what exactly that level would be. We will do it over the coming months, and we have to absolutely ramp up defence production. And these were the two notions in my speech last week, and this whole notion of NATO keeps you safe. I always loved it. I still love it. It's still there, but in four or five years, if you do not act now, in the coming months, we might be in difficulty. And that was my, basically the core of my speech last week here in Brussels.

President Nausėda answers

NATO Spokesperson, Farah Dakhlallah - Thank you. And on that note, we conclude, thank you very much.