Lithuania has asked the European Commission (EC) to disburse EUR 463mn from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), BNS reports. This is Lithuania’s third payment request under the facility. Lithuania asked for EUR 174.7mn in grants and EUR 288.3mn in loans. The EC will now assess the request and assess Lithuania’s achievement of the…
Baltic leaders visited Ukraine for the fourth summit of the Crimea Platform and bilateral meetings with their Ukrainian counterparts, The Kyiv Independent reported. Estonian President Alar Karis, Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina, and Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis reiterated their calls to lift all restrictions on arming Ukraine, support for a just and lasting peace,…
Lithuania’s Defence Minister, Laurynas Kasciunas, urged NATO allies to form a coalition to fund Ukraine’s defence industry, BNS reports. Lithuania will allocate EUR 10mn to Ukraine for the acquisition of long-range weapons manufactured in Ukraine. Kasciunas urged other countries to do the same, either by transferring the purchased weapons to the Armed Forces of Ukraine…
Ukraine should have the right to strike Russian air bases to “eliminate the sources of attacks and save lives,” Estonia’s Defence Minister, Hanno Pevkur, stated, ERR reports. He pointed to Russia’s continued attacks on residential buildings and critical infrastructure. Ukraine knows where the strikes are coming from, Pevkur noted. He reiterated Estonia’s position that the…
Estonia’s primary goals at the NATO summit in Washington include increasing defence spending, closing capability gaps, and maintaining a focus on the threat from Russia, ERR reports. Estonia is pushing for investments in critical defence capabilities such as air defence and ammunition. Estonia supports raising the defence spending target to 2.5-3% of GDP. Additionally, Estonia…
Baltic leaders reacted strongly to Russia’s massive missile attacks across Ukraine, including against a children’s hospital in Kyiv, on 8 July 2024. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda stated that there was “no line Russian terrorists would not cross.” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said that Russia was a terrorist state with whom negotiations were impossible. Estonian…
The number of poor people in need of assistance in Latvia has been decreasing in recent years in the regions of Kurzeme and Latgale, but has increased in the capital, Riga, according to the state-run Society Integration Foundation (SIF), LSM reports. More than 20% of all poor and low-income people received food aid and basic…
NATO must be ready for Russia turning even more hostile in the decade to come, Estonian President Alar Karis warned, ERR reports. Speaking after a meeting with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda in Vilnius, Karis said that Russia would remain NATO’s most serious military threat for a very long time. He called on NATO allies to…
The Baltic States will receive a total of USD 228mn in security assistance from the US under the Baltic Security Initiative (BSI) in 2024, ERR reports. The three countries received USD 225mn of assistance under the initiative in 2023, USD 180mn in 2022, and USD 169mn in 2021. The exact amount distributed to each of…