Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived Wednesday in Lithuania ahead of visits to Estonia and Latvia, as Ukraine seeks more help to bolster its air defenses amid Russia’s intensified missile and drone onslaughts in the latest development of the 22-month war.
The focus of the Baltic trip, Zelenskyy said on his official Telegram channel, will be security concerns, Ukraine’s hopes to join the European Union and NATO, and building partnerships in drone production and electronic warfare capacities.
The small countries on the Baltic Sea are among Ukraine’s staunchest political, financial and military supporters.
They have pushed Kyiv’s other Western allies to provide increasingly sophisticated weapons since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Russia’s belligerence toward its neighbor Ukraine has some in the Baltics worried that they could be Moscow’s next target.
The three countries were seized and annexed by Josef Stalin during World War II before gaining independence again with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. They joined NATO in 2004, placing themselves under the military protection of the U.S. and its Western allies.
