LITHUANIAN PRESIDENT DALIA GRYBAUSKAITE HAILED AS ‘PERSON OF THE YEAR’ IN UKRAINE

Courtesy of Ukraine Today
March 22, 2015

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine throughout confrontation with Russia.

Whilst on a working visit to Ukraine over the weekend Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite took time out to receive Ukraine’s Person of the Year Award.

The honour, handed out by Ukraine’s first president Leonid Kravchuk at a ceremony in Kyiv, offered recognition of Grybauskaite’s prominent role as strong supporter of Ukraine during the eastern European’s nation’s confrontation with Russia over the past year.

When asked at the ceremony if Lithuania would support the deployment of an international peace-keeping force to Ukraine Grybauskaite said such a plan would be unlikely to work: “Defending your borders which are currently under pressure from an aggressor is very important. But concrete measures for this have yet to be decided and the UNSC most likely won’t be able to make such a decision because Russia will block it. So it would seem we must search for other measures.”

The award made to Grybauskaite was organized by the Ukrainian Higher Academic Council. The Lithuanian president has endeared herself to the Ukrainian people since Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych last ousted last year and a Russian-backed insurgency began in the east of the country.

Grybauskaite has called for arming Ukraine, pushed for Ukraine’s full integration into the European Union, and described Russia as a terrorist state.