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| Lithuanian Defense Minister blabbed out information about the purchase of Leopard tanks |
| 2023-07-30 |
| Direct Translation via Googler Translate. Edited. by Viktor Lavrinenko [Regnum] The Republic of Lithuania intends to purchase at least 40 tanks for its armed forces. However, this deal, even before it was concluded, has already turned into a scandal and a quarrel between representatives of the highest echelons of power in Lithuania. President Gitanas Nauseda accused Defense Minister Arvydas Anušauskas of disclosing classified information about the upcoming purchase. But the minister refused to admit his guilt and continues to stick to his line. Nauseda and Anušauskas are representatives of opposing political clans, and their clash is due to the upcoming presidential elections. IRON LEOPARDS FOR IRON WOLVES On July 24, a meeting of the Lithuanian State Defense Council was held, at which the topic of arms purchases was discussed. The Lithuanian army is going to form a division, which will also include a unit equipped with heavy armored vehicles. On this occasion, the commander of the Lithuanian army, Valdemaras Rupshis , announced that it would be a light infantry division, consisting of three brigades. Two of them are the regular brigades Geležinis vilkas ("Iron Wolf") and Žemaitija ("Zemaitija"), plus the reserve brigade Aukštaitija ("Aukšaitija"). "And in addition to the division, we in the Geležinis vilkas brigade, in my deep conviction, must create a tank battalion in order to be able to conduct not only stationary defensive operations, but also maneuverable defense with the possibility of offensive and counterattack. As the current war shows, we must inevitably have all this," Rupshis emphasized. Previously, Lithuania did not have its own tanks, but now the state intends to buy them - at least forty units. However, since the acquisition of heavy combat vehicles will cost a huge amount, which is especially sensitive for a small and poor state, the authorities decided to get additional justification from the military that the Lithuanian army needs tanks, and not something else. “Members of the State Defense Council have requested the army to provide an additional political, economic, production and financial assessment - taking into account the fact that this will be one of the largest acquisitions of Lithuania. We are talking about two billion euros,” explained the adviser to the President of Lithuania, Kestutis Budrys. After the meeting of the State Defense Council, Budrys clarified that "this amount includes not only the cost of tanks, but also ammunition, logistics, supplies," and the final decision on which tank manufacturer Lithuania will buy has not yet been made. However, Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anushauskas has a different opinion on this matter. Anusauskas, leaving the meeting of the State Defense Council, decided that it was necessary to immediately tell the public about what was discussed there. He said that in the near future representatives of his department would sign a protocol of intent with German manufacturers regarding the purchase of Leopard tanks. The minister said that when considering the issue of acquiring tanks, his department chose between three options. “ We evaluated German Leopard tanks, American Abrams and Korean Black Panthers ,” the minister wrote on social networks. According to Anushauskas, the analysis and evaluation of the proposals submitted by the manufacturers took about six months, and in the end, comparing such factors as “cost and maintenance costs, operational environment, mobility, adaptability, security, firepower”, the Lithuanians chose the German Leopard. For a long time, Lithuania has chosen Germany among all NATO countries in terms of military cooperation - in particular, the Lithuanian authorities are actively seeking the fulfillment by Berlin of the promise given by Chancellor Olaf Scholz : to deploy a Bundeswehr brigade of up to four thousand military personnel in Lithuania. Apparently, this fact also greatly influenced the choice of the country that produced the tanks. The minister recalled that the Lithuanian armed forces already have some German weapons systems at their disposal, with which Leopard-type tanks will be well compatible. A FIND FOR A SPY Anusauskas added that the supply of tanks to Lithuania will be made within four to six years. According to his department, this could cost the state budget an average of about 200 million annually. However, these statements by the Minister of Defense barely had time to be heard, when Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda attacked him with harsh criticism, accusing him of publishing confidential information. According to the president, an agreement was reached at a meeting of the State Defense Council that such data, as Anusauskas published, " should be of limited use " and not immediately published. “I understand that it may seem very important to someone to share the latest information on the social network - but this, of course, should not be the main function of a minister or any other public official. You always need to think about the consequences of making this information public ,” the president told reporters, referring to “ enemies who listen to this information with their ears pricked up and draw their own conclusions.” The minister hastily began to make excuses - and again used social networks for this. Anusauskas assures that the information he made public was not secret: “I want to emphasize an essential point - in the field of defense, no information that has any kind of secrecy has been made public and is not being made public ,” the minister stressed. He also added that the abuse of secrecy is prohibited by law. “ If this principle had not been respected, you probably would not have known about the arrival of allied units in Lithuania, or about the exercises, or about the equipment received by the army, or about the acquisitions planned with the money of all taxpayers,” Anushauskas fights back. According to the minister, the public should know how much decisions to strengthen the army will cost the country. It is possible that the matter will not be limited to just a verbal sparring between the president and the minister. Seimas deputy Agne Shirinskienė (a member of the faction of the opposition Union of Peasants and Greens of Lithuania) appealed to the prosecutor's office with a demand to find out exactly whether the minister had really betrayed state secrets. This is not Shirinskene's first attack on Anusauskas - a few months ago, she convicted him of the fact that the minister speaks Russian much better than English, which, they say, is completely unacceptable for the holder of such a post. PRESIDENTIAL AMBITIONS “If the matter takes a serious turn, then the president’s accusations of almost treason against the head of the defense department can lead to Anusauskas not only losing his post, but also criminal prosecution,” political observer Vladimir Matveev assesses the seriousness of the incident . In order to understand the whole context of the scandal, it should be noted that Nauseda and Anušauskas belong to different political groups. Anusauskas is a member of the main coalition party "Union of the Fatherland - Christian Democrats of Lithuania" (they are also "conservatives"). For those who follow Lithuanian domestic politics, it has long been no secret that the leadership of the SO-CDL has not managed to build good relations with Nausėda, and recently they have been openly hostile, periodically exchanging critical remarks. Last spring, the "conservatives" managed to very sensitively prick Nauseda, organizing through the press the stuffing of information that the president had been hiding for more than thirty years - that in his youth he was in the ranks of the CPSU. Nausėda did not remain in debt - and is now hitting Anusauskas, who, unlike other SO-CDL leaders, has a fairly high level of voter sympathy in Lithuania. Less than a year is left before the new presidential elections. Gitanas Nauseda's rating is more than 60 percent, and only Anusauskas can compete with him from politicians in the current ruling coalition of conservative liberals. Therefore, the squabbling between the president and the minister should be regarded only as one of the episodes of the election campaign that has begun , ”explains Vladimir Matveev. So far, none of the politicians and leaders of the country has announced plans to run for the presidency, but Nauseda will nominate his candidacy for sure. The name of the CO-CDL candidate is not yet visible. It is only known that the head of this party, Gabrielius Landsbergis , really wants to run , but he is one of the most unpopular politicians in Lithuania. At the same time, both Nauseda and Anusauskas (like his entire SO-CDL party) are extremely anti-Russian. However, there are no politicians with a different opinion on the Lithuanian political Olympus now - or they carefully hide it. Therefore, no matter what the result of the next presidential election, scheduled in Lithuania for May 2024, may be, Moscow cannot count on any “thaw” in the Lithuanian direction. |
| Posted by:badanov |