ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュのWorld Stage: Ukraine with Lithuania Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte

MR. IGNATIUS: Welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m David Ignatius, a columnist at The Post.
As the world continues to watch the brutal invasion by Russia of Ukraine and the resilience of the Ukrainian people, I'm pleased this morning to welcome to Washington Post Live my guest, an important leader in Europe, the Lithuanian Prime Minister, Ingrida Simonyte.
Prime Minister, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

PM SIMONYTE: Hello. Thank you for having me on the show.

MR. IGNATIUS: So I want to begin by asking you, Madam Prime Minister, what your latest information is from the Ukrainian battlefield and whether you think Kyiv can hold out much longer.


PM SIMONYTE: Well, Ukrainians are fighting like lions, and I think this is the true spirit of people who fight for their land because, contrary to Russian troops who are trying to occupy the country, they are fighting for their land and their freedom. So their strength is unbelievable. I mean, I pray every day for them to hold on and to be able to combat this brutal aggression, but from what I get, I am in constant contact with my colleague, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, and of course, we also have quite a unique international coverage in this situation.
We see that today, despite the sort of talks about the talks that are happening somewhere in Belarus, Russia is attacking Kharkiv with carpet bombing, meaning that they basically choose no targets. They are just carpet bombing the city, residential areas, places where there are no military buildings or no military infrastructure whatsoever, which only proves that everything they are telling about this "special operation," as they call it, is a complete lie.

MR. IGNATIUS: So, Madam Prime Minister, in your mind, given this continued assault on Kharkiv, does that mean that the diplomacy that's taking place in Belarus really has no meaning? And let me ask an additional question. Do you still see any diplomatic exit from this conflict that's possible?

PM SIMONYTE: Well, you know, even when the war is ongoing, there is a chance for diplomacy. I mean, there is always a chance for diplomacy. The question is, is there a goodwill?
So from what I've heard from Russian side and from what I hear again today, they want to agree or they want Ukraine to surrender, as a matter of fact, under the Russian conditions, and those conditions are this crazy demilitarization and, even more crazy, denazification, things that they sort of claim Ukraine is doing, sort of running a Nazi state, which is complete nonsense. And I've not heard anything more reasonable from the Russian side.
I can fully understand Ukrainian government and Ukrainian president because it's the civilian lives that are being lost. There is a couple of dozen children that are killed, and we know that.
There was just‑‑a moment ago, there was a speech of Ukrainian ambassador to United Nations in the General Assembly, and he quite eloquently described the situation on the ground. So it's understandable that none of the democratically elected government want its people to be killed. So they are doing whatever it takes to at least try to stop the war, but I have little trust in Russian intentions.

MR. IGNATIUS: Madam Prime Minister, President Putin over the weekend did something quite unusual, which was to place Russian nuclear forces, he said, on the highest state of alert. The Pentagon responded by saying that this was entirely unnecessary, but it's led some people to wonder about Putin's state of mind.
You follow Putin so closely because you're a neighbor. I'm just curious about whether you have concerns about his isolation, his decision‑making. What's your thought as you looked at that declaration of the nuclear alert?

PM SIMONYTE: Well, there are a couple of things I would like to mention. First and foremost, this is not the first time where he's putting this argument on the table. It happened before.
Second, what is also important, I would say that, you know, it's a typical question where people are asking do you think he has a sane mind. Well, I'm just an economist, you know. I'm not a psychiatrist. So I do not have any competence in judging whether this is proof of some mental disorder, but what I can imagine is happening, I think he has had very limited information of what is actually happening on the ground, because he made a couple of very big miscalculations in this operation.

The first miscalculation was about the reaction from the Western democracies. He definitely was counting and was betting that if even there will be a unity, then this unity will be in prayers and words, not in deeds, and he miscalculated.
And the second one, he was miscalculating the reaction of Ukrainian people. I'm pretty sure that somebody misled him by telling that, you know, you will see a crowd of people meeting Russian soldiers on the train stations with red flowers, and this is not happening. And the Ukrainian people are fighting like hell, and they will be fighting. And I think this was‑‑this, of course, brings a question: What is the information that he bases his decisions on?

MR. IGNATIUS: So that's a fascinating response. You're describing a Russian president who is isolated in terms of the information he receives and who is making judgments that simply don't match reality, if I'm understanding you right.

PM SIMONYTE: Yep. Because what he's saying‑‑well, there is a big question: Can a person realistically tell such a nonsense, you know, but not believing in it? So, most probably, he believes in it, but to believe in things that he's saying, you actually have to have a very limited information to make a judgment like that.
So there is, you know, an information, one might say, rumors that are coming from Russia that he is spending most of his time in bunker. So maybe that's why he likes those long chats with world leaders where he is explaining his approach to world history for six hours, and basically, he is not very much interested, most probably, in what is actually happening with his economy, with his people, with the life down to earth, so to say, on the ground. And he lives in some parallel reality of his empirical ambitions.

MR. IGNATIUS: That's a fascinating assessment from one of Russia's neighbors.
So I want to ask you about the sanctions that were announced, including the announcement this morning by a U.S. Treasury official of extraordinary sanctions against the Russian central bank. As we were told on background by this official, essentially, the U.S. and its allies, its European and some Asian allies, are going to make it impossible for Putin to tap his central bank reserves, his so‑called "rainy day fund."
You're an economist. Talk for a minute about what effect these new sanctions added to the SWIFT sanctions against banks are going to have on the ability of that economy to function at all.

PM SIMONYTE: Well, one thing that is important calculating the impact of sanctions is that Russia actually is very much integrated into global economy, not because it is sort of a modern economy supplying goods and services around the globe. It's mainly a raw material economy, but this means that it depends on the global economy to get money for the functioning of the state and to get the components that are needed for their, for example, military ambitions and whatever other ambitions the country's government is possessing, because they are not very much famous for making people's lives better, investing into civic infrastructure like roads or schools whatsoever. But they are very heavily investing in, for example, military equipment, weapons, and space projects and this type of things and a luxury for the elite. So they are very much dependent on what they get from the other parts of the world.
So, when people were saying before, you know, we do not need sanctions because sanctions do not work‑‑so I would completely deny it because there were no real sanctions whatsoever so far.
Given that, there was always this, you know, reluctancy to impose sanctions because we will hurt the people, and so we should impose sanctions that are sort of attributed towards the particular natural persons, maybe not allowing them to do something, to travel or to get assets, but it's so easy to go around those sanctions, to have a fake name, under fake names, the proper, then the fake names, or trusts or offshore entities, and there are quite many ways to deal with this. So, basically, there were no sanctions.
And the other thing was that it was not coordinated between, for example, European Union and United States‑‑or United Kingdom, for that matter. That was quite known for quite a long time for their attraction of Russian money, and many Russian oligarchs and also government cronies were having their apartment buildings in the UK.
So I think now it's a very serious reaction, and it is very well coordinated among the major jurisdictions. But you see that quite many jurisdictions that do not belong to European Union, for example, and are, for example, in Indo‑Pacific or other places of the world are also joining, meaning that there is a sort of unified accord that something, what happened on Thursday, last Thursday is so‑‑such a big tragedy and such a bad development that basically there is no debate about it.
So what does that mean with what happens? It means that basically Russian government or central bank will have a very tough work. I don't think it is doable to sustain the ruble. We see that the prices of assets of Russian companies are tumbling down on world stock exchanges, and I don't know if Moscow has opened its own stock exchange. But I presume that they did not dare to do it. So, basically, this is very painful, and, well, we assume that this will hurt people, same as travel ban will hurt people. But I'm sorry. I don't think there is a way to impose real sanctions and not to hurt people because this war is fought also in their name.

MR. IGNATIUS: So that's a powerful assessment of the sanctions. As I heard you speaking, it sounds like any meaningful functioning of the Russian economy, at least connected to the outside world, will be impossible now.
I need to ask you. Lithuania over the years has been a place where some Russians did their banking. It's an obvious place to try to evade the sanctions. What are you going to do to try to crack down in Lithuania to make sure that you're not a place where money and trade leak back and forth?

PM SIMONYTE: Well, as a matter of fact, I would say that the fraction of trading with nonresidents in our country was very low and substantially lower than in our neighboring countries. We had a couple of national banks, not meaning central banks but the banks that were not owned by foreign investors, and those went bankrupt ten and seven years ago. So we had to shut them down because of also dealings with nonresidents.
So I would say that this will not pose any risks to our banking system since it's not exposed to Russian business, and the level of anti money‑laundering provisions and prevention is very high now from the times when there were those unpleasant stories about some of oligarchs using also Baltic banking system for their wrongdoing.
So we've been vocal advocates for sanctions for so many years. So there will be no second thoughts about implementing them.

MR. IGNATIUS: So, Madam Prime Minister, let me ask you to assess the effect that this war, the sanctions, the shock of the war is having on the Russian people. We're seeing news about Russians in the streets, not hundreds of thousands, but thousands in cities across Russia. Do you think this is going to grow into a movement that's powerful enough to really challenge Putin's policy?

PM SIMONYTE: Well, I hope so because, even in that crazy regime, in a crazy brutal regime like Putin's or Lukashenko, it's not possible to jail everyone. It's simply physically not possible.
So I think what is happening now is somewhat price Russian people are paying for complacency that was there during the last, maybe, 10 years, where this crackdown on the civil society was stronger and stronger, when Navalny was put to jail for completely fake accusations, where there were fake elections and rigged results. And the number of people who report to streets were decreasing each and every time. I can understand‑‑like, personally, I can understand it because, well, there is this risk that you will be hurt, that you will be caught, that you will be questioned by militia.
But it turned out to think, I think--also for Putin, there was a good basis to think that basically people do not care, and he thought, especially after Crimea, when the support for this move, for this occupation of Crimean Peninsula was very wide in Russia, as a matter of fact, including the circles that are educated, well, educated that would be attributed to elite, the cultural elite or scientific or political. So this complacency is somewhat the reason why this crackdown on this society is so harsh during the last couple of years because there's basically no nonprofit organization. They've been proclaimed either foreign agents or extremist organizations or whatsoever. They've been closed. Navalny was jailed, and there is basically limited options for the organization.
And we know that there is also a censorship that is switched on now because you are not supposed to use the word "war" in Russia. You will get a penalty for that because it's not a war according to them. It's a special operation, a special peacekeeping operation, which is yet another Orwellian or Kafkian expression about what is actually happening.
So, yes, I feel deep pity for people who actually do not support this, and I feel deep respect for those who dare to go to the street, although they know that they will be caught. They will be questioned. They maybe will be sentenced even for that, but if there will be no substantial numbers of people protesting against war, then I don't think that much can change.

MR. IGNATIUS: And, Madam Prime Minister, are there ways in which we in the West, you in Lithuania, can help and encourage Russian people in challenging this terrible policy of unprovoked aggression by Putin?

PM SIMONYTE: Look, there were, I would bet, a couple of hundred thousand people who took to streets of Berlin yesterday, and it looks like, you know, they say, "Oh, Western people, they do not care much. It's only those Baltics who are very noisy about‑‑you know, about Kremlin because they are so close, so maybe are overcautious or over that." That was something we've been accused for so many years and maybe even sometimes called paranoid, and now we see that, unfortunately, this is happening.
So for the people who are in the center of the event or the people in whose name this war is fought, I think it is‑‑it should be a strong encouragement for taking to the streets, but I'm afraid that the major driver most probably will be the economic situation, because we see the effects on people might be quite substantial. And if that anger would help people to make up their mind, then that was worth it.

MR. IGNATIUS: So let me turn, Madam Prime Minister, to what's really the toughest question for you in Lithuania and for NATO, and that is if Putin succeeds in Ukraine‑‑and you'd have to guess, given the size of the Russian forces there, he will succeed at terrible cost‑‑what's next? And people ask, in particular, whether Putin will next move to try to essentially take back the Baltics, reduce or eliminate your independence the way he's trying to destroy the independence of Ukraine. Tell me first how likely you think such a move is, and then I want to talk about what the West can do to help you prevent that.

PM SIMONYTE: Well, there is a significant difference, of course, between us and Ukraine in the way that we are members of NATO and European Union, and yes, there was a bet by Putin also against the Ukraine that, you know, there will be nobody for you because you are not NATO member, you are not EU member, so there will be nobody for you. There will be just words and prayers.
But what we see, as a matter of fact, happening, even countries that were‑‑that was unimaginable that they would supply lethal weapons to a country that is not member of NATO, now we are seeing that happening. It's much more hard to explain why you are not supporting Ukraine today in terms of weapon supplies than to explain why you are doing this, and we as a country were among those who started to do it from the beginning together with our allies in the United States or United Kingdom and other Baltic countries and Poland.
So, basically, the big difference is that also NATO reacted to the situation swiftly and quickly and responded with supplying more troops, more boots on the ground, and more, other measures that could deter, that could be used as a deterrent for prevalent regime.
So I think that, you know, we can only speculate what would be the moves of Putin if he succeeds in Ukraine, although I see little chance of him succeeding, because even if he can take Kyiv, the fight that will be fought by Ukrainian people will be very long. And it will be devastating for Putin's regime because this is a country that's thrown down two of Kremlin‑installed presidents and elected democratically a couple of parliaments and couple of presidents, and they cherish their freedom very much. So I don't think this could be a long‑term solution.
Yes, of course, he can place his army. He can place his militia and others, but I'm afraid that then the territory that he needs to sustain in his heavy fist becomes a little bit too big and the number of people a little bit too numerous.
So I think that it will be a very big problem and a very big mistake, but apart from this, of course, we see it in his sort of outlook about the world. He is saying that‑‑or in his ultimatum, he is suggesting that NATO should withdraw all the‑‑these locations and everything that has been placed not only in Baltic states but also in a wider Central and Eastern Europe.
And then this is a question for us as Western democracies. Should we actually‑‑how should we react? So I think there should be stronger deterrence in the region, and this is happening. There should be also more investments into defense and security, and this is happening.
And what happened yesterday in Bundestag is absolutely tectonic, I would say. It's absolutely game changing because a week ago, I think, nobody would have imagined Germany saying that we are going to increase our defense spending up to NATO minimum, and we are doing that for quite a number of years already. And, of course, this is very important because it means that there will be more resources for defense. NATO is not an attack alliance. It's a defense alliance, and it will remain like that.
But I think the message is crystal clear that Article 5 is actually a real thing, and I have no ground to believe that this is not true.