EXCLUSIVE: Growing up under Soviet rule, Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė was not allowed to celebrate Christmas. Her mother was born in a Siberian prison camp.
The crime?
Her teenage brother was caught handing out leaflets that said, “Lithuania is free.” After 50 years of Soviet occupation during the Cold War, many Lithuanians today are wary of any negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and are watching the Kremlin’s next moves closely.
“In my opinion, the only efficient diplomacy with Russia was what Al Capone said, the only good negotiation is when you have a gun on the table. So that’s probably the kind of diplomacy that would work with Russia,” Šakalienė warned during an interview at the Lithuanian Embassy in Washington Friday.
When asked if Putin could be trusted, the 46-year-old defense minister, who once lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as an exchange student, replied, “Are you kidding me? After what was done to my family and by Russia for generations, I don’t think you would find any Lithuanian who could trust Vladimir Putin.”
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is now more than three years old. Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has engaged in direct talks with Russia to end the war.
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“Historically, Russia has never ever kept an agreement,” Šakalienė said.” Our only hope is that the tough and harsh approach by President Donald Trump may be the only safeguard keeping Putin in check. So let’s hope that happens.”
Located in Eastern Europe, Lithuania’s population of 2.8 million in an area roughly the size of West Virginia, the small country cannot afford to ignore Russia. It shares a 184-mile border with Russia (Kaliningrad) as well as a 420-mile border with Belarus, which she says is “now just a platform for the Russian army.”
She said, “They are trying to frighten us. They are trying to make us feel insecure,” about the Russian forces next door.
Lithuania is ramping up defense spending as a result of Russia launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and plans to exceed Trump’s demand that NATO allies spend 5% of GDP on defense. Šakalienė said her country hopes to reach 6% by next year. The U.S. currently spends 3.4%.
Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also urged NATO allies to ramp up defense spending. “The United States will no longer tolerate an imbalanced relationship which encourages dependency,” he warned at NATO headquarters in Brussels on his first overseas trip.
As a NATO defense minister, Šakalienė was there in Brussels. She applauded Hegseth’s remarks, calling them an “ice-cold bucket of water.”
“I saw the faces of my colleagues. A lot of shock, a lot of stress,” she said. “Nobody in the room mentioned 2% [of GDP] which is so redundant, irrelevant, inadequate. It’s gone. It’s old news.”
When asked why Western Europe has been lagging on defense spending years after Russia seized 20% of Ukraine, Šakalienė replied, “I think that a very large part of the democratic world got caught up in this illusion of an idealistic world, which has never existed.”
She said part of the illusion was believing wars are over. Russia never thought this way, she explained.
“The non-democratic part of the world has not changed. They are actually playing by their rules. So if they are not playing by our rules, our blindness is what put us in this dangerous position.”
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Šakalienė is the only NATO defense minister sanctioned by China. When asked about Beijing’s motives in supporting Russia, her answer might surprise some people.
“Russia is able to boost its military production so efficiently because China is feeding it,” she said. “It is useful for China to have this war of exhaustion, and also it is useful for China, even though it supplies Russia, to see Russia also lose a lot of its soldiers – a lot of its weapons and equipment – because a weaker Russia is more convenient to China.”
Despite heavy battlefield losses in Ukraine over the past three years, Russia is building an army of 1.5 million soldiers, according to Šakalienė, who warned Putin has “more imperial expansion plans in his hand.”
When Fox News sat down at the Lithuanian Embassy on Friday, Trump was trying to secure a mineral rights agreement with Ukraine and eventually hopes to seek a ceasefire agreement with Russia.
“If Russia violates the ceasefire, the response must be immediate and violent,” Šakalienė urged.
When asked for her reaction to a report that Trump is considering not defending NATO allies who do not spend enough on defense, Šakalienė applauded the harsh rhetoric from Trump, calling it “painful” but justified. “Everyone needs to contribute, burden sharing is the main rule if you really want to have a strong alliance.”
She pointed to the Baltic States and Poland as leading NATO members in defense spending as a percentage of GDP.
Last year, the European Union, which Lithuania is a member, spent more on Russian oil and gas than aid to Ukraine. Šakalienė said her country was “the first one to cut off” Russian oil and gas. “We were even supporting our neighbors, Latvians and Polish with energy supplies. So for us, being independent of Russian energy is a matter of life and death.”
Lithuania’s first LNG terminal was aptly named “Independence,” according to Frank Fannon, who served in Trump’s first term as assistant secretary of state for energy resources.
When Fox News sat down at the embassy, Lithuania had just announced it would be withdrawing from the convention on cluster munitions, an international agreement by more than 100 nations prohibiting cluster bombs. Šakalienė explained why Lithuania is pulling out.
“We want to be ready to use anything and everything necessary to protect our borders. We don’t want Russians to come to our homes again. We want to send a strategic message, a very clear message, that we will do anything to protect ourselves.”
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Lithuania, along with other European nations, also wants to withdraw from another treaty soon known as the Ottawa Convention, which bans anti-personnel land mines.
“This is a terrible weapon, just like cluster munitions, but the Russians are using the weapons, including forbidden weapons. So we want to send the message back,” she said.
In addition to Russia, China and the United States are also not parties to the agreement. In 2014, the United States announced it would abide by the Ottawa Convention, except for the landmines already deployed on the Korean Peninsula.
Šakalienė, a deeply devout Christian, said Russia is not only attacking Ukraine, but the Christian faith as well.
“It was Soviet Russia that tried to annihilate the church in Ukraine, in Lithuania, in Poland. They have now sort of revived their Christianity and are using it for KGB infiltration, for FSB infiltration, she said. “This is a betrayal.”
She continued, “When we see how churches in Ukraine are being bombed, being robbed…the Christian community in Ukraine is being murdered and their beautiful heritage is being destroyed.”
The Lithuanian defense minister ended the interview with a final warning.
“We tend to try to diminish our enemies. This is a mistake. You have to see them for what they are.”
