“Those ties should be seen in terms of their content, their subject, activity and nature, whether it is trade, imports, exports, investment by Russian businesses in Lithuania or investment by Lithuanian businesses in Russia. And then those ties should be assessed in terms of their implications for us,” he told the LRT Radio on Thursday.
“Therefore, we should not hurry to label everything with the same label immediately and say that everything in itself is bad…,” the adviser noted.
Budrys stressed that Lithuania’s strategic sectors had been protected against Russia’s influence even before the war in Ukraine.
“Everything that is related to our strategic, main sectors that are key to the quality of the functioning of the state and, in general, the functioning of the state as a whole, has been protected seriously enough even before the war,” he said.
After Russia attacked Ukraine in February, the Seimas of Lithuania stated unanimously that Russia is "a state that supports and commits terrorism".
In Budrys’ view, it is necessary to discuss what could be the potential legal implications of recognizing a state as “terrorist” and whether such recognition may merely constitute a political designation.