She said she raised the issue during her trip to Israel last week. There she met with the President of the country Yitzhak Herzog and members of parliament – the speaker and deputies of the Knesset, the chairman of the commission on foreign affairs and security.
“During meetings with Israeli politicians, I raised the issue of the information that had appeared. I was assured that this information was not true and that Israel did not make any demands on the Baltic states regarding weapons,” Cmilyte-Nielsen said.
On your Facebook Speaker of Lithuania mentionedthat the head of the Knesset committee on foreign affairs and security, Ram Ben-Barak, when asked about this, said that he did not have such information and he “strongly doubts its reliability.”
She clarified that she did not ask whether the Baltic countries could freely transfer Israeli-made weapons to Ukraine if the need arises.
“I did not ask such a question, but it is clear that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are free to decide in accordance with their perception of the threat that is now emerging in Ukraine,” the speaker said.
That the Israeli Ministry of Defense in December 2021 banned Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania to transfer weapons of their own production to Ukraine, although they have not yet submitted such a request, the American specialized publication Breaking Defense wrote this February. The publication called this warning “an almost unheard of preventive measure, prompted by Israel’s need to balance its relationship with Russia.” It was about the Israeli-German Spike anti-tank weapon, which all three Baltic countries ordered for their own needs.
Against the background of Russia’s accumulation of troops near the borders with Ukraine, a number of countries announced the transfer of defensive weapons and ammunition to Ukraine. This USA, Great Britain, Baltic countries, Czech Republic, Poland and other states.
Fundamentally refused to supply defense weapons to Ukraine – including Estonia’s permission to transfer of German-made howitzers – Germany. Since the beginning of the war in 2014, Germany has provided financial assistance to Ukraine (for seven years, the amount of assistance amounted to about $2 billion), helps to heal Ukrainian servicemen wounded in Donbass. However, all this time Berlin refused from providing weapons, and in 2021 blocked the supply of weapons Ukraine through NATOdespite US warnings of a possible new Russian invasion.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, in an interview published on February 2 in Axios, said that in the near future does not see the possibility of violent confrontation between Russia and Ukraine. He added that Israel is in a difficult situation because it has close relations with both Russia and Ukraine and must “act with caution regarding the Russian-Ukrainian crisis.” The minister also expressed concern that the events in Ukraine divert attention from the ongoing nuclear talks with Iran in Vienna. His statement criticized the Ambassador of Ukraine in Israel.
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