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Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹

Sep 14

1/8🧵
Our leaders’ white lies were designed to keep us thinking everything is OK. Now, as things are clearly not OK, it’s time to tell Europeans the truth and prepare them to face reality.

White lies won’t last forever – but telling the truth could save Europe.

My latest article explains how and why it’s time for governments to try using more honesty in strategic communication, and to find the bravery to admit we’re in serious trouble.

Full article in the thread below…

2/8🧵
Politicians might fool their own people with white lies, but I am not so sure of their ability to fool Putin.
Full article:

Or continue reading the thread…landsbergis.com/white-lies-won…

3/8🧵
Sometimes I hear complaints that Putin will discover our weaknesses if our leaders are too truthful in their public communications. “We need to portray strength,” they say, “Putin is reading our newspapers”.

Their argument implies that the truth must be sacrificed for “stronger” strategic communication. Leaders are advised to ignore the reality on the ground to continue exaggerating our capabilities and readiness in the hope that our visible optimism will convince Putin that we are strong. This plan not only aims to fool Putin, but also recommends using governments’ strategic messaging to keep populations believing everything that could possibly be done is being done, and going well.

On the contrary, I have always believed that truth is the best medicine. But sometimes I am criticised for not playing along, for refusing to strategically tell today’s white lies. So I decided to critique my instincts and give this important question some thought.

Obviously, I agree that Putin and Europeans read the European press and follow the debate that is taking place. I can even agree that it is possible to use strategic communication to fool a large number of your people into thinking that you have things under control. We have seen that working for many years. But I am not so sure about our propaganda’s ability to fool Putin. I know only this – taking an adversary for a fool is a fool's endeavour, so we are probably only fooling ourselves.

Read 8 tweets

Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹

@GLandsbergis

Jul 14

We still aren't helping Ukraine to win. Politicians announce their latest attempts to appear busy, but it feels scripted, closer to professional wrestling than reality. Failing in the real world, they construct a pseudo-world and act like the leaders of that. 🧵1/4

The latest announcements made the Russian stock market go up, not down. Putin is not fooled by headlines advertising the latest western nothingburger, but those headlines dominate our discourse and mask the fact that nothing of real consequence is being done.🧵2/4

We must focus our attention on deliveries, not announcements. I will believe the West is sending weapons to Ukraine when I read that Ukraine is sending those weapons towards Russia. That’s the only kind of headline worth waiting for. 🧵3/4

Read 4 tweets

Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹

@GLandsbergis

Jun 10

🧵1/4
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister recently stated that, in order to achieve peace, NATO must “withdraw” from the Baltic states. Many found this shocking—but the demand is not new.
As early as the 1990s, when it became clear that newly independent states from the former Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union might join NATO, the Alliance sought to assuage Russian concerns by signing the NATO-Russia Founding Act in 1997. The document aimed to mitigate Russian objections to NATO’s enlargement.
One of its key political commitments was that NATO would refrain from deploying “substantial” permanent combat forces in the territory of new member states. In return, the Act reaffirmed core international principles, including respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the UN Charter.
Russia has since repeatedly violated these very principles - most notably with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

🧵2/4
Just prior to that invasion, Russia issued a list of demands to Ukraine and the West. Its central demand to NATO: a rollback to the Alliance’s 1997 borders - effectively requiring the withdrawal of NATO forces and infrastructure from all countries that joined after that year.
While NATO declared the Founding Act “dead” in political terms following the invasion, it never formally repudiated or denounced it. So de jure, the document still stands. And one could argue it remains de facto in force as well, since there are still no substantial (i.e., larger than brigade-level) permanent NATO deployments in Eastern Europe. U.S. forces in Poland remain on a rotational basis, and the forthcoming German brigade, even if permanently stationed in Lithuania, is still presented as a non-substantial force, within agreed limits.

Eastern flank members have repeatedly called for the Act to be formally declared null and void, arguing that it creates a two-tiered NATO in which where some countries are less defended than others. Their calls have met stiff resistance from certain allies, and the Act still remains.

🧵3/4
Why is the dead agreement not being binned? Maybe because some Western policymakers still believe that maintaining the optics of restraint might help by avoiding escalation. The extension of the de-escalation doctrine seems to be that if NATO avoids provoking Russia, Moscow might be persuaded to limit its aggression to Ukraine and refrain from challenging NATO directly.
But Russia’s actions—and its own public declarations—show this conflict is not just about Ukraine. It is a broader imperial project aimed at resurrecting Russia’s sphere of influence and undermining the West. Moscow has said this explicitly and repeatedly - yet the West still acts surprised. And whenever the West gives ground - Russia just takes it and asks for more, calling it "justified grievances". And it will just continue like that until Russia is stopped.
During the Cold War, NATO stationed 400,000 troops along the border with the Warsaw Pact. Such numbers were considered essential to credible deterrence. Today, we cannot expect to deter Russia effectively while self-imposing limitations - especially when Moscow imposes none on itself.

Read 4 tweets

Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹

@GLandsbergis

Apr 3

I agree with @kajakallas that the EU should become a beacon of freedom. So when do we start?
Here I offer six ways to actually light the beacon and step into the role history has chosen for us. Our response to the current uncertainty can be firm and long term. A thread.🧵1/17

Some Europeans still hope that Washington’s rhetoric is just noise, perhaps Trump and his team genuinely want to pressure allies into doing more, and once Europe proves itself, things will “go back to normal.”
But we shouldn't bet on that, and we don't have time to wait.🧵2/17

First: Get tough on internal disruptors.
Europe cannot act decisively if Hungary continues to hold the entire continent hostage. It’s time to invoke Article 7 against Hungary, suspend their veto and stop rewarding blackmail.🧵3/17

Read 18 tweets

Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹

@GLandsbergis

Mar 25

The Truman Doctrine, based on helping free peoples to resist autocrats, was US policy from 1947 until 2025. Now the Trump Doctrine seems to say the opposite—that US national security will benefit from helping autocrats fight against free people.🧵1/6
👇article link in comments

Why would Trump change the rules so radically? One theory is that he believes that the world should be ruled by strongmen, specifically himself, Putin, and Xi. In this world Trump can use force instead of diplomacy, he can justify grabbing Canada, Greenland and Panama.🧵2/6

Another theory is that Trump is trying to woo Russia away from China. This would require huge changes in US policy and also a miracle to convince China to let Russia go. It would have been simpler to arm Ukraine and neutralise Russia instead of trying to make friends.🧵3/6

Read 7 tweets

Gabrielius Landsbergis🇱🇹

@GLandsbergis

Mar 22

It looks as if Europe has lost belief in itself, lost belief in its power, forgotten that we can actually change things, that we can actually win if we try, in Georgia, in Ukraine, in all the countries that were promised a path to accession to the EU.🧵1/6

In Tbilisi I met with the relatives of political prisoners and heard their shocking stories. Let that sink in. An EU accession country is holding political prisoners. Young people, not even 20 years old, have sentences of 7 to 10 years. How could we let this happen?🧵2/6

The USA is choosing to extinguish the beacon of peace they kept alight for so many years. And Europe is not doing anything yet to relight it, or even to inspire neighbours who are looking to us to keep it burning for them.🧵3/6

Read 6 tweets

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