Lithuania's Nauseda sees Russia appeasement policy creeping into EU

VILNIUS - Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda says he sees signs that a policy of appeasement towards Russia is trying to creep into the European Union.

In his words, this attitude is the result of Western countries' fatigue over the war in Ukraine taking place for almost 10 months.

"I see such signs, I see such efforts," the Lithuanian president in an interview with the delfi.lt news website on Wednesday, asked if he saw a policy of appeasement towards Russia infiltrating the EU.

"And in such cases, I always tell my colleagues in those other EU countries: we should understand, dear friends, how much Ukraine is suffering today and how tired it is of this war. Our fatigue, our difficulties are ridiculous compared to what the Ukrainian people are suffering," the Lithuanian president added.

The arguments behind this policy of appeasement "are beautiful and noble" and are aimed at ending the war as soon as possible, he said.

"But the question is at what cost. After all, no one in Lithuania would understand if someone from outside started trading on Lithuanian territory and said: "You know, take a piece of the north east and give it to your aggressive neighbors for a safe and good neighborhood." If someone raised the issue this way, we would say they were crazy," Nauseda said.

The West has no right to tell Ukraine that it has to make "territorial or other concessions" to the aggressor in order to achieve peace, he underlined.

Ex-US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and some Western politicians have previously stated that Ukraine should cede part of its territory to Russia to end Moscow's invasion.