Baltic States – CIS, Energy, EU – Baltic States, Forum, Legislation, Lithuania

"I think this demonstrates -- which was what the military exercise demonstrated, too - that it is Moscow, not Belarus, not Minsk, that runs things on its territory. And it is Moscow, not Minsk, that makes decisions on who goes where," she said in an interview with LRT Radio aired on Friday morning.

Lukashenko received an invitation to the Eastern Partnership summit, but sent his foreign minister to Brussels.

Grybauskaite underlines that Lithuania's relations with Belarus are complicated due Minsk's military cooperation with Russia, particularly the Zapad drills held earlier this autumn, as well as the nuclear power plant that Russia's state corporation Rosatom is building in Astravyets, some 40 kilometers from Vilnius.

According to the president, Rosatom "conceals information and is not a transparent builder" and Lithuania will continue to seek a "full-fledged" SEED mission by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the Astravyets site.

Dalia Grybauskaite said also that Ukraine needs to be more persistent in carrying out reforms rather than in demanding a EU membership prospect.

"Persistence is good, but perhaps what's most important is not to obtain guarantees, but to be persistent when it comes to our own reforms, because any membership in any organization is as worth as it is beneficial to Ukraine itself and to the people of Ukraine," she told reporters on her arrival to the Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels.

According to the president, Ukraine will be given such guarantees as soon as it is ready, "but that is a long way to go".

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Part of the costs of the BNS journalist's trip to Brussels were in part covered by the president's office. This has no impact on the contents of the news report.