Grybauskaitė said at a Friends of Europe think tank discussion in Brussels that if the United States, China and Russia indeed consider dividing the world into spheres of influence, then Lithuania “may become prey”.
“This would be very bad. I believe that the USA will stop and will not continue on this path as it would be very dangerous,” said the former president.
Grybauskaitė noted that the world order was changed both after the First and Second World Wars, and once again after the Cold War in 1989. Now it seems that under US President Donald Trump’s administration the world order would be changed once more, she said.
Grybauskaitė hopes that the USA will realise that this is not a game as three nations – the US, China and Russia – cannot dictate the world order because this would end in brutal wars. She stresses that relations between the countries must be based on respect for one another and dialogue instead of waging wars. The former president adds that now the situation is unstable, unpleasant and is worrying both Europe and Ukraine. Yet she also hopes that eventually everything will be fine.
Trump had claimed that he would end the war in Ukraine in a day. Recently US and Russian delegations met in Saudi Arabia to discuss peace in Ukraine. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky will visit Washington this Friday to sign a deal on rare earth minerals after Trump demanded that Ukraine share them with the USA.
It is thought that during peace talks Russia will repeat its demands to NATO raised in 2021, when it called not to admit new countries to NATO and not to establish new military bases in ex-Soviet countries.