Dovilė Šakalienė, Defence Minister of Lithuania: Uncertain times for Europe
The Interview20 Mai 2025

Dovilė Šakalienė, Defence Minister of Lithuania: Uncertain times for Europe

BBC Defence Correspondent Jonathan Beale speaks to Dovilė Šakalienė, Lithuania’s Defence Minister.

The Baltic nation, along with its neighbours Latvia and Estonia, share a border with Russia, and have nervously watched the invasion of Ukraine, fearing they could be next.

All three countries have had turbulent relationships with their much larger neighbour, Russia. They were annexed by the Soviet Union during the Second World War, and were subject to decades of rule from Moscow up until the end of the Cold War.

In 2004, Lithuania joined both the European Union and Nato, and just over a decade later, adopted the Euro as its currency. But despite looking westwards, the country has always kept one eye on developments over its eastern border in Russia.

Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea in 2014 set off alarm bells in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, and when the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia began in 2022, Lithuania and its neighbours began fearing and preparing for the worst..

Presenter: Jonathan Beale Producer: Ben Cooper Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(1948)

Carlos Acosta, dancer: Ballet is for everyone

Carlos Acosta, dancer: Ballet is for everyone

“It's very important that we expose this work early on, so that people from different cultures see ballet as a way of a career. But in the 1990s or 2000s, it was pretty much closed, we didn't have - e...

6 Aug 24min

Srinivasan Muralidhar: The trauma of Palestinian children

Srinivasan Muralidhar: The trauma of Palestinian children

‘When it comes to humanitarian crisis, we should not allow children's future to be subject to geopolitics. We can't say that there are politically compulsions as a result of which we are allowing chil...

4 Aug 25min

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s Foreign Minister: Slavery scars our collective conscience

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s Foreign Minister: Slavery scars our collective conscience

“The time has come for the international community to be honest, not to be hypocritical, not be selective, not engage in erasure, but to admit that the gravest crime against humanity took place and it...

2 Aug 24min

Sumant Sinha: Green tech to triumph over drilling

Sumant Sinha: Green tech to triumph over drilling

Leanna Byrne speaks to Sumant Sinha, the founder of ReNew, one of India's largest renewable energy companies about why he thinks green and clean energy will win out.Sinha began his career in finance, ...

30 Jul 23min

Gayton McKenzie, South African minister: Immigration unrest

Gayton McKenzie, South African minister: Immigration unrest

“This is a legitimate concern of South Africans, where there’s illegal foreigners, people with no paperwork. No country in the world allows that to happen. Why should we? Our message is very simple. W...

28 Jul 23min

Rohan Kanawade, film director:  My parents accepted my sexuality

Rohan Kanawade, film director: My parents accepted my sexuality

‘Their love was so innocent, so sweet, so organic and we just wanted them to end up together because even they knew that some of the queer films always end in tragedy and they were worried that someth...

26 Jul 23min

Rafael Grossi, IAEA: Nuclear back on the table?

Rafael Grossi, IAEA: Nuclear back on the table?

“Due to geopolitical divides, countries are having second thoughts about non-proliferation or their non-proliferation obligations, in the sense that many countries were relying or are still relying on...

23 Jul 22min

Amy Wallace, writer: We all need to speak up

Amy Wallace, writer: We all need to speak up

“We all need to be speaking up about it. Not just the survivors. And we put so much burden on the people who've actually suffered the most, the most vulnerable among us.”Naga Munchetty speaks to Amy W...

21 Jul 23min

Populært innen Politikk og nyheter

giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
forklart
popradet
stopp-verden
fotballpodden-2
rss-gukild-johaug
nokon-ma-ga
hanna-de-heldige
det-store-bildet
dine-penger-pengeradet
rss-ness
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
aftenbla-bla
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
e24-podden
aftenpodden-usa
frokostshowet-pa-p5
rss-utenrikskomiteen-med-bogen-og-grasvik
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene