Lithuanian President: More Defense Spending Needed; Nauseda Stresses Need for Greater Cooperation

By Ai Murakami / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

20:00 JST, June 14, 2025

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda stressed the need for increased defense capabilities in light of Russia’s continued aggression in Ukraine, in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun on Tuesday.

“I think this is important to understand that those countries will never calm down, and they will try to escalate tension to create additional challenges,” he said of Russia and its ally Belarus.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is considering a proposal to raise each member’s defense spending target to 5% of its gross domestic product by 2032, and Nauseda said Lithuania will surpass this target next year. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has been strongly urging European countries to increase their defense spending.

Nauseda noted that the risk of an attack by Russia is increasing.

“We have not so much time to prepare ourselves,” he said, adding that even European countries geographically distant from Ukraine should increase their defense spending as soon as possible.

Nauseda said that, as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran strengthen their ties, cooperation between Europe and Japan is becoming even more important.

“They are the threat to all of us, so we have to unite our forces in order to take those threats and to build the wall of resilience … In this geopolitical context, to stick together, it’s even more important” than before, he said.

The Japanese government has announced that it will dispatch Defense Ministry officials to Lithuania’s Regional Cyber Defense Centre (RCDC) starting later this month, which Nauseda called a “very good example of our cooperation in this very important field.”