Lithuanian American Council

“Aš kalbu lietuviškai labai mažai, bet man patinka bandyti,” Anne E. Derse, the US Ambassador to Lithuania, told me after an interview in the American Embassy. In fact, it seems that all US Ambassadors, defying the general stereotype about anglophones’ alleged enmity with foreign tongues, make a point of learning to speak Lithuanian during their term in Vilnius. And yet, Ms Derse, who is finishing her term this year, has certainly went the extra mile to connect with the Lithuanian [...]

On 19 April at the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council at the level of foreign ministers in Brussels, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis drew attention to the ammunition explosions that Russia was carrying out in the Kaliningrad region close to the Lithuanian border, and proposed to launch a NATO project which would suggest alternative ways to liquidate old ammunition in the region. Ažubalis welcomed and stressed the need to continue implementing a joint NATO-Russia project aimed to protect [...]

WASHINGTON –  The Central and East European Coalition (CEEC) will hold its annual Advocacy Day on Wednesday, April 25, 2012.  The Advocacy Day will include briefings, meetings with Members of Congress, an evening event on Capitol Hill, and a reception. On Wednesday morning, beginning at 8:30 am, an informative briefing session will take place at the historic Stewart Mott House with presentations on issues of concern to the CEEC’s respective American communities:  Russian influence in Central and Eastern Europe; security [...]

MOSCOW — A Russian newspaper has reported that the military has begun deploying S-400 mobile surface-to-air missiles in Kaliningrad, the Baltic exclave bordered by Poland and Lithuania. Izvestia cited unnamed military officials as saying the missiles arrived Friday, but did not say how many. The Defense Ministry declined comment on the report. S-400s, Russia’s most advanced surface-to-air missiles, have a range of 120-400 kilometers (75-250 miles). The report comes amid rising tension between the U.S. and Russia over Washington’s plans [...]

On the working visit to Washington, D.C. on 9 April, Lithuanian Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Evaldas Ignatavičius conferred the award of honour of Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs “Lithuanian Diplomacy Star” on the U.S. Secretary of State’s Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy, Ambassador Richard Morningstar for his support to Lithuania’s goal of energy independence. On 9-15 April, Ignatavičius is paying a working visit to Washington, D.C. and Chicago. The solemn ceremony at the Lithuanian Embassy in the United States was [...]

Ambassador, you represent Lithuania in the United States, a country where around one million Lithuanians and people of Lithuanian descent live, as citizens of the United States. Are you to a certain degree also their ambassador? As an ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania, I represent, first of all, interests of my country and my fellow citizens. Not all Lithuanian Americans are citizens of Lithuania, but they, nevertheless, kept close ties to their Homeland and helped greatly to keep memories [...]

Nuclear power plants are delicate projects. If anything goes wrong – and something always does go wrong in any human endeavor – consequences can be devastating and reaching well beyond national borders of a country responsible for it. No wonder, then, that when Lithuania heard that a close neighbor, Belarus, was building a nuclear power plant within arm’s reach from Vilnius, it wanted some questions to be answered first. As Dainius Petras Kamaitis, Lithuania’s special ambassador with the Economic Security [...]

The eleventh sequel of the Baltic Region Training Event (BRTE XI) was completed on 28 March when all assets involved in the event were safely back at their home bases. The two-day training event brought together German Phantom fighter aircraft and Swedish Gripen as well as Finnish Hornet jets in the Baltic region to execute a scenario where a Lithuanian Spartan transport aircraft simulated a loss of communication above international waters in the Baltic Sea. “This has been another excellent [...]

President Grybauskaitė underlined that nuclear security was a priority item on Lithuania’s agenda. Lithuania was acting in full compliance with all safety requirements at both the Ignalina nuclear power plant, which was being dismantled, and the planned Visaginas nuclear power plant. “There are no problems whatsoever regarding Lithuania,” Yukiya Amano said. According to Dalia Grybauskaitė, the people of Lithuania however were highly concerned about the safety of the nuclear power plants projected for construction in the neighboring Kaliningrad region and [...]

Lithuania announced March 2 that it will lease a Norwegian Floating Storage and Regasification Unit in 2014. The unit, an offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) degasification ship, theoretically could provide more than enough natural gas to meet Lithuania’s needs. The relatively new technology, which is mobile and able to be leased, helps small countries avoid the large up-front costs of building LNG facilities and thus could change the energy landscape for coastal countries in Russia’s periphery. However, Moscow will retain [...]