Lithuania refused to transfer howitzers and NASAMS air defense systems to Ukraine

Lithuania will not transfer Panzerhaubitze 2000 self-propelled howitzers and NASAMS anti-aircraft missile systems to Kyiv, Defense Minister Arvydas Anushauskas said on LRT.

Anusauskas preferred not to disclose the reasons for the refusal to transfer weapons.

“We discussed this issue in a closed format. Unfortunately, we won’t tell you the details. We have our own arguments, our own proposals.”he said.

The minister noted that in total Lithuania has already sent aid to Ukraine for 640 million euros. Of these, 232 million euros went to the military needs of Kyiv.

Earlier, a NATO spokesman told Foreign Policy on condition of anonymity that Western countries have begun to worry about Ukraine’s weapons appetite. According to the interlocutor of the agency, Kyiv’s demands are depleting the reserves of the NATO countries themselves.

According to the Washington Post, the United States and Europe, due to the demands of the Ukrainian authorities, may soon be left without any weapons for their own protection.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stressed that any shipments of weapons supplied by Western countries to Ukraine would be a legitimate target for the Russian Aerospace Forces.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the supply of weapons would not stop, but would prolong the conflict in Ukraine. In the light of this fact, the position of the Western countries seems “harmful” and “counterproductive”.

In turn, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, noted that pumping Ukraine with weapons from Western countries would not contribute to the success of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and would also have a negative effect.