The economic and military pressure that Russia is piling onto Ukraine effectively amounts to an attack, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on his way into talks with his EU counterparts.
The European Union needs to be "very clear-eyed about the situation ... Ukraine is already under attack," Landsbergis said, calling for the bloc to consider imposing sanctions now rather than just having them on standby for the case of an invasion as planned.
As a Baltic state, Lithuania has "a front row seat to the whole situation," he said. As well as the huge economic challenges Ukraine faces, "you have to imagine that the country is surrounded by a foreign army with a threat of invasion," Landsbergis told reporters.
The minister also said the announcement that Russian troops would stay in Belarus - Lithuania's neighbor - changed the security calculus for Europe and NATO. "What we're seeing is actually a very slow occupation of Belarusian territory and state," he said.
