Will Putin stop?

Isabelle Lasserre - The last NATO summit, held in The Hague in June 2025, was a disappointment for the Ukrainians. As for the Europeans, they multiplied their signs of submission to Donald Trump. As one of the most listened-to voices in Eastern Europe, you said: "It could have been worse". What did you mean by that?

Gabrielius Landsbergis - I have the feeling that participants' expectations have never been so low. Everyone feared that Donald Trump would do or say something that would spell the end of the Alliance, and that the meeting would end very badly. In the end, the worst was avoided, but with hindsight I wonder if there's really anything to celebrate...

I. L. - And what's your response?

G. L. - We've won a battle against Trump. In any case, we haven't lost it. I'm not sure, however, that we're ready for the real battle, the one against Putin. Much has been done to appease the American president, to make him feel welcome. During the NATO summit, Secretary General Mark Rutte was very generous with him (1). But was the decision to increase defense budgets to 5% of GDP really necessary? The problem is, at this stage, we don't know how to implement it. Do all countries understand what this means? Poland probably does, as it had already been at 4% for a long time. Many states on the eastern bangs of Europe say they'll keep their promise, and I think that's possible. But if you look at Spain or Belgium, there is room for doubt. These countries are much less willing to defend and rearm. The question is whether the decision taken in The Hague represents a real commitment, or whether it's just a document that will remain a dead letter. In the end, the two virtues of this summit will have been to reassure Trump and to show that the Atlantic Alliance is doing something... For some, this is already an appreciable result. But will they translate into the creation of new capabilities that will enable us to break the deadlock in which we find ourselves? Or will we, as usual, be content to assert, without actually doing so, that we are spending more, producing more, and being better defended? For the moment, we don't have the answer.

I. L. - What do you think of Donald Trump's recent change of heart, when he promised to deliver more arms to Ukraine and said he was "disappointed" by Putin? Do you think this is a real U-turn?

G. L. - I wouldn't be so quick to call it a "U-turn". Rather, it seems that the United States doesn't see what a Ukrainian victory would do for them, and has no intention of getting involved alongside Kiev. Since Donald Trump's announcement, everyone has been wondering whether Ukraine will indeed receive Patriot systems, who will supply them and when. The only certainty is that Putin continues to bomb the country every night with hundreds of drones. The …