00:00And the ongoing war in Ukraine and the spat over the Drozba pipeline is also under discussion
00:04over at NATO this week. Secretary-General Marko Lutha has welcomed a number of leaders,
00:09including the Lithuanian Prime Minister Inge Rugenina. Our correspondent Shona Moore,
00:13Marie, reports from NATO. Well, Maeve, just as the dust has been relatively settling here at NATO
00:19in relation to Donald Trump's claims last month that he was going to take over Greenland,
00:23a new fissure has emerged. As we've seen, Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister,
00:28saying he's going to block a 90 billion euro loan for Ukraine, a considerable amount of which was
00:33going to be spent on military support. And I caught up with Lithuania's Prime Minister, Lithuania,
00:38of course, a frontline state in all of this war, Inge Rugenina, and I asked her about this situation.
00:44When you live, you know, in a border of Europe and Union, when you're faced off every day with the
00:51threats, different kind of threats from balloons and other things, when you're fighting for the
00:57security, not just for Lithuania, but for whole Europe, to hear such words and decisions, it's
01:06nonsense. So we are worrying about it. And I am speaking about that in different levels in European
01:15Union, that it is unacceptable. And the European Union can be strong if we can have a strong one
01:24voice. So we have to be, we have to have ability to have common decision in very strategic questions.
01:33When you say it's nonsense, are you saying the whole point that Orban is making that Ukraine is blocking
01:41Hungary's access to the Druzhba pipeline, we know that Russia bombs the pipeline. Are you saying it's
01:46nonsense, his claims that Ukraine isn't fixing it, isn't bothered to fix it?
01:52It's almost yes. And, you know, for me, I don't understand that the person thinks that if the war will
01:59start in NATO area in European Union, he thinks that it will not come to Hungary. I think it is,
02:10again,
02:11it is, it is quite silly, silly thinking.
02:17So you think basically, you know, Hungary is being naive here if he, if the Hungarian government believes
02:22that this war can't go to Hungary because it can. If Russia will put a step into European Union,
02:31they will go further. And we as Lithuania, we have a big experience about Soviet Union times. We know how
02:42it's, how you feel when Russia comes to your land. We know how, how the life is, life is going
02:48on. That's why
02:50for us, it's very sensitive questions. That's why we as Lithuania invest a lot of into defense. So
02:57this year, we have 5.38% of GDP investments into defense. It is a huge amount, it is almost
03:0625% of
03:08whole our budget, because we understand that we don't want to come back to that times, to that
03:14experience which we had in the past. Given the context of, let's say, slow Europe, a non-unified
03:21Europe blockages by Hungary, and the United States no longer supporting Ukraine militarily,
03:28does Europe have the capabilities to defend itself for a few years until it rebuilds that?
03:35I think we have to work for the situation that we have a very strong NATO alliance. And we have
03:46to do
03:47everything to build a very strong relationship between America and European Union. This is our top priority.
03:58Of course, we can speak about the worst, the worst plan, what, what it should be. But the first top
04:09priority
04:09should be strength relationship between transatlantic relationship. But by the same time, we have to work
04:20with Europe within European Union and strong unity. One voice is crucial today. So it should be working in both
04:33ways.
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