Lithuanian election winners pledge big defence spending

Lithuania's opposition Social Democratic party has promised to spend "as much money as is needed" on security and defence to counter a potential threat from Russia after finishing a comfortable first in Sunday's parliamentary elections.

- Jon Henley

"Our election manifesto says it should be not less than 3.5% [of gross domestic product (GDP)], and this is unavoidable," the Social Democrat leader and MEP, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, said yesterday.

Lithuania, which shares a 179-mile border with Russia, has been one of the EU's strongest supporters of Kyiv and one of the fiercest critics of Moscow under the Baltic state's outgoing conservative-led government. Blinkevičiūtė promised that that would not change after her centre-left party won 52 seats in the 141-member parliament.

Polls show as many as three-quarters of Lithuania's 2.8 million people believe the country could be the target of a Russian invasion in the near future. Lithuania is already among the top Nato spenders, allocating about 3% of GDP to defence.

According to the Kiel Institute, a German thinktank, Lithuania is also among the top three countries that provide aid to Ukraine as a proportion of GDP.