{"id":527252,"date":"2026-03-20T10:24:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T07:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=527252"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:20:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:20:37","slug":"lithuania-will-not-abandon-sanctions-against-minsk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/lithuania-will-not-abandon-sanctions-against-minsk","title":{"rendered":"Lithuania Will Not Abandon Sanctions Against Minsk"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Lithuania is not changing its position on Belarus and will continue to support sanctions against Minsk.<\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;It should be noted that not long ago we secured the extension of EU sanctions against Belarus for another 12 months. During this period, there is neither the opportunity nor the political will to return to revising sanctions. Thus, the lifting of US sanctions is one thing, while EU sanctions policy is a different path,&#8221;<\/i> Lithuanian President <b>Gitanas Naus\u0117da<\/b> said on Thursday following news of the release of political prisoners in Belarus and the easing of US sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>Naus\u0117da added that he had personally warned US President\u2019s Special Envoy <b>John Coale<\/b> about what he described as <i>&#8220;Lukashenka\u2019s tricks.&#8221;<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;I told Mr Coale this directly. Since we are neighbours with Belarus \u2014 and, as they say, you do not choose your neighbours \u2014 we know very well the methods being used. The problem is that this creates a flawed incentive mechanism for Lukashenka: to turn this into a constant cycle \u2014 releasing some prisoners, imprisoning others, and then expecting new concessions during the next visit of US representatives. This creates precisely the wrong mechanism for putting the Belarusian regime in its place. Therefore, I repeat once again: one should not equate European and US policy, although we will always support the release of people, as this is the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective,&#8221;<\/i> he said, as cited by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lrt.lt\/ru\/novosti\/17\/2873027\/nauseda-es-i-ssha-idut-raznymi-putiami-v-voprose-sanktsii-protiv-belarusi\">LRT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The office of Lithuanian Prime Minister <b>Inga Ruginien\u0117<\/b> also confirmed that Vilnius\u2019s position on sanctions remains unchanged.<\/p>\n<p><i>&#8220;US decisions are a matter of its national policy. Lithuania\u2019s position on sanctions against Belarus remains unchanged \u2014 we adhere to a principled approach and support a strict sanctions regime,&#8221;<\/i> said the prime minister\u2019s adviser <b>Ignas Dobrovolskas<\/b>, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.delfi.lt\/ru\/news\/politics\/sovetnik-premera-resheniya-ssha-eto-vopros-ih-nacionalnoy-politiki-poziciya-litvy-ne-menyaetsya-120226275\">Delfi<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lithuania is not changing its position on Belarus and will continue to support sanctions against Minsk. &#8220;It should be noted that not long ago we secured the extension of EU sanctions against Belarus for another 12 months. During this period, there is neither the opportunity nor the political will to return to revising sanctions. Thus, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":500875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/69bd2d8b3c127.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Lithuania Will Not Abandon Sanctions Against Minsk"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142338,143090],"tags":[143118],"class_list":["post-527252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-belarus"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}