Lithuanian President, Gitanas Naučeda, said that he supports the idea put forward by his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, regarding the deployment of NATO nuclear missiles in his country as a deterrent to Russia.

The two Presidents discussed security issues when they attended NATO military exercises held in the “Suwalki Corridor,” a narrow strip of land about 100 kilometers long that separates the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad from Russia’s ally Belarus and joins Poland and Lithuania.

The idea of deploying nuclear weapons is not warmongering, nor threatening to Russia, it is a deterrent, the Lithuanian President told reporters.

His Polish counterpart, conservative Andrzej Duda, this week proposed deploying NATO nuclear weapons on his country’s soil to counter missiles deployed by Russia in Kaliningrad and Belarus, an idea not supported by the liberal government of the country, but which provoked the wrath of Moscow.

Duda, however, once again supported this idea.

“All of NATO’s territory must be properly and adequately protected, therefore it is reasonable that a nuclear mechanism could be redeployed to NATO’s eastern flank,” he said.

As one of these countries, Poland has declared that it is ready to accept these weapons, he added.

The two Presidents made the remarks during military exercises involving 1,500 NATO troops to test various defence scenarios in the Suwalki Corridor, which is seen as the Alliance’s ‘Achilles’ heel’ in the region.

Also read: Poland | Fortifies border with Kaliningrad

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