Lithuania summons Belarusian ambassador after Lukashenko's statements on Suwalki Gap

The Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced this, Delfi reports.

On March 29, Charge d'Affaires of Belarus Yaroslav Khmyl was summoned to the ministry and handed a note of protest.

The reason for the protest was a recently published conversation between Lukashenko and a high-ranking Belarusian military officer, in which unfounded accusations of military threats to Belarus allegedly emanating from Lithuania were made.

The conversation also included insinuations about the insecurity of the Suwalki corridor and instructions to prepare the Belarusian army for a possible confrontation with the Baltic states and Poland.

Diplomats noted that such statements could be seen as a further escalation of the Belarusian authorities' aggressive foreign policy.

Read also How Russia is preparing for Suwalki Corridor war: military expert Sniehyrov explains

Now, Lithuania has demanded that Belarus immediately provide an official explanation of Lukashenko's statements and reiterated that the country will take all possible measures to guarantee the security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.

Earlier, Belarusian propagandists published a video in which Lukashenko addressed his military and asked if he could "seize the territory of Poland." In the conversation, he also mentioned the Suwalki Gap and hurled accusations at Warsaw and Vilnius.

The Suwalki Gap is a 100-kilometer-wide section of the Lithuanian-Polish border that borders Russia's Kaliningrad region to the west and Belarus to the east. In the case of a potential war, it would be important for Russia to quickly seize the Suwalki corridor to cut off NATO allies' land route to the Baltic states.