Category: Europe

“A Russian victory would embolden Iran, North Korea and China. That matters for Europe’s security and it matters for America’s security. So supporting Ukraine serves U.S. interests,” Mr Stoltenberg said. The Secretary General stressed that “for a tiny fraction of annual defence spending, the United States has helped Ukraine destroy a major part of Russia’s combat capacity, without placing a single American soldier in harm’s way.” He also thanked Secretary Blinken for his personal commitment to NATO.

On Monday (29 January 2024) the Secretary General met with Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. In public remarks ahead of a bilateral meeting, Mr Stoltenberg underlined that Allied support is helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s brutal aggression, and that aid to Ukraine is not charity but an investment in our own security. He therefore welcomed both Secretary Austin and President Biden’s leadership in ensuring that US support continues. 
 
Looking forward to the Washington Summit later this year, the Secretary General noted that Allies are set to take further steps to strengthen NATO, including with more defence spending, where he underlined that European Allies and Canada are stepping up and have invested 450 billion extra US dollars for defence.
 
While in Washington DC Mr Stoltenberg is also meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, the Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson, Democratic Leader of the House Hakeem Jeffries, Republican Leader of the Senate Mitch McConnell, as well as other Democratic and Republican Representatives and Senators. On 31 January, the Secretary General will deliver a speech at the Heritage Foundation.
 
As part of his visit to the US, the Secretary General will travel to Troy, Alabama to visit the Missiles and Fire Control Facility of Lockheed Martin. He will conclude his trip by visiting the headquarters of the US Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida.

The Secretary General outlined Montenegro’s contributions to Allied security, including deploying troops to multinational battlegroups in Bulgaria and Latvia. Montenegro also contributes to “building more effective and inclusive security forces” as a part of NATO’s training mission in Iraq, he added.

Mr Stoltenberg stressed Montenegro’s critical role in securing stability in the Western Balkans. He welcomed the Prime Minister’s strong commitments to reform, as well as Montenegro’s path to Euro-Atlantic integration. Condemning last year’s outbreaks of violence in Kosovo, the Secretary General highlighted NATO’s swift response, “deploying 1,000 additional troops and heavy armour.” He underscored that NATO is “committed to ensuring that KFOR continues to fulfil its UN mandate.” 

The Secretary General also noted that NATO ambassadors will visit Sarajevo next week, calling this “a demonstration of strong support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

On support for Ukraine, Mr Stoltenberg thanked Montenegro for its contributions through NATO’s Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP) and urged Allies to continue stepping up support for Ukraine at this critical time. 

Looking ahead to the upcoming Washington Summit, the Secretary General said “Sweden’s entry into NATO will make the whole Alliance stronger.” He thanked President Erdoğan for swiftly signing the recent ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership by the Turkish Grand National Assembly, “and I look forward to Hungary’s ratification as soon as the parliament reconvenes,” he said.

Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital city, is home to an extensive collection of street art. Beautifully painted images surprise both locals and foreigners, showing everything from a jacked Albert Einstein (complete with an E = MC2 shoulder tattoo) to a kitten on a bookshelf with titles by Lithuanian authors. Since January, the Vilnius street art gallery has a new acquisition: NATO’s first-ever officially commissioned mural.

The “Protect the Future” mural depicts episodes of everyday life. Individuals and small groups of people gather to play sports, socialise and have fun in a public park. Over them is a blue-striped umbrella branded with NATO’s compass, symbolising how NATO protects people all across the Alliance and helps them feel safe and free to live their lives as they choose.

“We wanted to paint about freedom and what it means to people, but to visualise something like this is a huge task,” said Žygimantas. “So we asked ourselves what freedom is about and we agreed that it all came down to feeling safe, being able to carry out our daily tasks and being with our family and friends. That is what holds the most value for people and the direction we wanted to go for.”

Throughout the course of three days, Žygimantas and partner artists from the “Living Graphics” art collective endured freezing cold weather to paint the mural.

“It was quite a challenge because the weather conditions make it difficult to paint in winter. Any water-based paint would freeze instantly, so we had to resort to spray cans. We used a couple hundred cans and we had to paint with both hands to maximise time, but we enjoyed seeing the public reaction to the whole process. We were painting in front of a beautiful park and we saw many people passing by taking photos.”

One of the highlights of NATO’s “Protect the Future” campaign, the mural that currently adorns the historical building at Pylimo Street 9, in Vilnius Old Town, was commissioned by NATO to celebrate the fruitful collaboration with Lithuania when it hosted the NATO Summit in July 2023.

“It’s my hope that the mural will resonate not only with the people of Vilnius but across Lithuania, encapsulating the nation’s NATO membership and emphasising the Alliance’s enduring importance to our future,” said Marie-Doha Besancenot, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy. “As we look ahead towards the 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO this year, we hope that this is the first of many murals that commemorate NATO’s mission across the Alliance.”

In 2023, the “Protect the Future” campaign focused on engaging with youth across Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, with popular Lithuanian blogger and YouTube star Paulius Mikolaitis (known as Paul de Miko). Since the start of Paulius’ involvement in the campaign, he has had the opportunity to attend some of the most important events in the NATO calendar, including the Vilnius Summit and the “Baltic Operations 23” military exercise. Born in Lithuania, Paulius emphasised the importance of introducing youth to NATO’s activities, stating, “The mural in Vilnius Old Town serves as a symbol, reinforcing Lithuania’s NATO membership and the role it plays in protecting all our futures.”

Pictured: Paulius posts about NATO’s mural on his personal Instagram account. In the text, Paulius jokes “The official representative of NAFO presents the @NATO mural and invites everyone to see it up.” NAFO stands for North Atlantic Fella Association, a group of social media users dedicated to fundraising for defenders of Ukraine and countering disinformation online.

About the artist

Žygimantas Amelynas was born and raised in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city. In his first years as an Applied Graphics university student, Žygimantas became enamoured by street art and, particularly, by the idea of turning cities into open-air galleries by covering old buildings with thought-provoking images.

Now with a 15-year-long career as a professional muralist, Žygimantas looks back at his first steps in the field with nostalgia.

“I actually got my first job through my father. He was a broker and he put me in contact with a restaurant that wanted a mural. I was new to mural painting, and this was my first step into this whole sphere. From that experience, I learned that I wanted to transform public spaces into art.”

In his creations, Žygimantas celebrates people, emotions and the human experience. Žygimantas’s aesthetic is bold and colourful and it often features large-scale portraits and intense facial expressions. A key part of his creative process is to understand the context of a site, learning about the history of buildings and the communities who live or once lived in that location.

Arguably Žygimantas’s most well-known work, the ‘Old Wise Man’ (2013) is an enormous mural that pays tribute to the Kaunas-born modern artist, Jurgis Maciunas, who put Lithuanian art on the map in the mid-20th century. Painted on the side of an old footwear factory, the mural is composed of a barefoot giant wearing a red bodysuit and smoking an enormous pipe. 

The first public large-scale mural in Lithuania, the Old Wise Man contributed to the change in public perception of street art in the Baltic country.

“The Old Wise Man is the most important artwork I have done,” explains Žygimantas. “It was the first widely noticed mural in my country and, at the time, the perception of urban art wasn’t very positive. There was this idea of graffiti as vandalism. But with the Old Wise Man work, people saw how street art can transform places and started to appreciate it more. Today, people from other cities even come to visit it.”

See other works of Žygimantas Amelynas in this photo gallery:
 

• • Expedition Through Not Imagined Worlds (2022) by Žygimantas Amelynas.
• • M.K Ciurlionis Kings Tale (2022) by Žygimantas Amelynas
• • The Thinker (2020) by Žygimantas Amelynas
• • The Winter is Over (2019) by Žygimantas Amelynas

NATO has been supporting the process of normalising the use of the airspace over Kosovo since 1999, by leading consultations known as “Balkans Aviation Normalization Meetings”. These meetings are regularly attended by representatives of Allied countries, air navigation authorities, national military authorities and relevant international organizations, including the International Civil Aviation Organization, the European Aviation Safety Agency, and EUROCONTROL, among others.

In 2014, the upper airspace over Kosovo was reopened. This was made possible by the contributions provided by Hungary and the role performed by its Air Navigation Service Provider (HUNGAROCONTROL), which undertook the responsibility to control flights above 21,000 feet. In recent years, through the Balkans Aviation Normalization Meetings, NATO facilitated the formalisation of a Framework Agreement between KFOR and Iceland. Iceland’s Transport Safety Authority (ICETRA) is now acting as a Safety Oversight Function in support to the KFOR Commander, who retains primary authority for the use of the lower airspace over Kosovo, as per the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 of 1999. ICETRA performs the scrutiny of all the technical solutions that allow for the establishment of new direct routes, in the lower airspace, between Pristina and other cities.