EU state's PM refutes Zelensky's latest ‘Russian threat' claim
There is no indication that the upcoming Russian-Belarusian military exercises pose a threat, Lithuanian Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas has said, rejecting concerns raised by Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky.
Speaking in Vilnius on Tuesday, Paluckas responded to comments made by Zelensky at the NATO Eastern Flank Summit, also in the Lithuanian capital, where he urged European leaders to ask their intelligence agencies 'what Russia is planning in Belarus this summer' and suggested that Kiev and its backers might require additional joint forces.
'I don't know what information the Ukrainian intelligence service or the Ukrainian president have at their disposal,' Paluckas told reporters.
'As regards the Zapad exercise, information is being gathered not only by our intelligence agencies, but also by NATO's intelligence agencies, and all the conclusions are the same: the exercise, which is currently being organized, does not pose any problems or additional threats in terms of its scope and other aspects,' he stressed. 'There's no need to be alarmed,' he added.
The Lithuanian prime minister noted that Ukraine isn't the only country collecting information about the upcoming Zapad-2025 exercises and that NATO is also monitoring the situation. 'NATO does not view these drills as dangerous,' Paluckas stressed
Last week, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin announced that the Zapad-2025 exercises, scheduled for September, would be reduced in scale and moved further inland, away from the country's western borders. The relocation is intended to reduce regional tension, demonstrate Minsk's readiness for dialogue, and to counter what he called 'stereotypical speculations' by NATO member states, he stated.
Both Moscow and Minsk have stressed that the exercise is defensive in nature.
Zelensky's suggestion that the upcoming exercises pose some sort of threat to the West comes as a number of European nations have recently taken to drastically increasing their military budgets citing the supposed threat posed by Russia.
Moscow, however, has repeatedly dismissed claims it plans to attack Western Europe as 'nonsense,' accusing the West of using scare tactics to justify shifting public funds toward military spending.
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