Lithuania at the Frontier of the War in Ukraine

Abstract

In the 1990s, Lithuania’s sovereignty politics was defined by its departure from the Soviet authoritarian regime and the transition to democracy, culminating in its integration into the European Union and NATO in 2004. Since Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014, Lithuania’s sovereignty has been threatened by Russia’s revisionist politics. Lithuania espoused strong support for Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion, voicing the most radical positions among the European allies accusing Russia of genocide and terrorism. This article discusses the genealogy of sovereignty-building in Lithuania since the collapse of the Soviet Union, illustrating how geopolitical threats shape sovereignty politics, at the center of which is the idea of freedom.