Lietuvos Seimo pirmininke, mieli draugai!

It has been a long day and we have had many interesting discussions with members of the Seimas and also your key ministers. We appreciate very much the cordial reception. It has been repeated many times today that the relations between our two countries are deep and long-standing. Indeed, in our case these are not just nice words. The relations and interaction between our peoples go beyond the current geopolitical questions, they go back not just decades or centuries but millennia. Our ancestors have inhabited the coasts of the Baltic sea for a very long time and exchanged genes, words and cultural items.

We both speak exceptionally conservative languages which have not changed very much over the past two thousand years. The shared vocabulary, which is usually borrowed from the Baltic to Finnish, is still easily recognizable even for someone with little linguistic training. For example, in such Finnish words as kirves, seinä, villa, kiivas, and herne, you will of course recognize Lithuanian kirvis, siena, vilna, gyvas, and žirnis. Actually, the first part of my surname, Halla-, is also borrowed from Baltic. It means “frost” and is historically the same word as Lithuanian “šalnas”.

We are both small nations, and we share the same fundamental question: How to safeguard our national interests against the ambitions of the eastern power which does not, and probably will not, recognize the right of its smaller neighbors to make their own choices. You have fresh memories of Russian imperialism, and for you – as well as all other central European countries – the answer was obvious after you had regained your freedom in the early 90s. To integrate into the Western collective security structures as fast as possible and as deep and tight as possible.

We had been more fortunate after the second world war, but the decades of a special relationship with the Soviet Union unfortunately left their mark in our mentality. We were suspicious of NATO, and the public support for joining the alliance remained very low up until February 2022. There was a lot of naiveness and wishful thinking regarding Russia and its internal development. The invasion of Ukraine shattered the old illusions and marked a very dramatic u-turn in the public opinion. I believe our huge disappointment in Russia is one of the reasons why the support for Ukraine is so strong now, almost unanimous, as is our commitment to NATO and our willingness to contribute to the collective deterrence.

The Russian leadership is traumatized by the loss of the Soviet Empire. It is a safe assumption that they will try to restore that empire. Unfortunately, there is not much resistance to this policy among the Russian population. Therefore we must predict that the threat will persist indefinitely. We cannot count on treaties or international law, because Russia does not respect them. We must invest in deterrence. Having all democracies of the Baltic region in the same defense alliance makes that work a bit easier.

Finally, we appreciate very much your active role in helping Ukraine. You understand just as well as we do that a Russian victory in Ukraine would have grave implications not only for the world order but also to our own national security. Therefore, a Russian victory cannot be an option for us, and we must do everything we can to prevent it.