Dovile Sakaliene (47) has been serving as Lithuania's Defense Minister since December 2024.

The following is an extract from the interview.

DW: And you are not too worried that the US is too close to Putin?

Dovile Sakaliene: "Well, in my opinion, President Trump has seen very clearly manipulations by Putin, and several comments that he's made indicate that maybe sometimes what he says publicly and what he really understands deeply may be more complicated (...). Secondly, yes, of course we are concerned. Yes, of course we feel at least a bit anxious about the whole process. But as I said, nobody has suggested a better alternative. Nobody really has a better solution right now. So we try to go with what is happening right now, pushing hard for protection of Ukraine, pushing hard to increase support to Ukraine."

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