"We need to continue and accelerate our military, humanitarian and financial assistance to help Ukraine win this war faster. Lithuania's bilateral aid to Ukraine and support for refugees from Ukraine in our country exceed half a billion euros. Lithuania will transfer additional 10 million euros to the National Bank of Ukraine for immediate reconstruction works. Lithuania will support Ukraine until your and our victory! And beyond that", the Lithuanian prime minister told the conference on Tuesday.
The most appropriate and just way to pool funding for Ukraine's reconstruction would be to seize and use Russian assets frozen under the existing sanctions, she added.
"We cannot resurrect the people killed by Russia, but we have a real opportunity to make the aggressors pay reparations. As this money is kept in our banks and docked at our piers," Simonyte was quoted as saying in a statement released by the government press service. "I call on the European Union and all non-EU countries that have imposed sanctions to create a legal mechanism to seize assets and to make the sanctions really effective."
Ukraine, which is in the midst of a war with Russia, has not postponed reforms, but has accelerated them to rebuild an even better Ukraine, the Lithuanian prime minister also pointed out, adding that now is the turn of Ukraine's friends and partners to prove that it's possible to move quickly from discussions to joint action.