2024-04-11 13:07:56
The leaders of the states of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Greece are participating in the event held in the House of Lords.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskis also arrived in Vilnius earlier in the afternoon, having stopped at Kempinski Hotel before meeting with the Lithuanian President.
Vilnius residents could see that important guests were expected early on Thursday morning.
Police officers patrol the entire center of Vilnius, police crews are also on duty at the capital’s most famous hotels.
Every few minutes, sirens of police cars are heard in the city center, accompanying the cars of foreign delegations passing through the streets of the capital, and medium-range air defense systems NASAMS are also deployed at the Vilnius airport.
Police officers are also preparing to restrict car traffic in the central part of the city from noon – on T. Vrublevskis, Šventaragis, Barbora Radvilaitė, Arsenal and T. Kosciuška streets, on Trispalvė avenue.
Officials have already had to seize some of the cars of Vilnius residents that were not parked on the spot.
“Today will be like this traffic jamsthat ugh! Half of the center will be closed,” the news portal warned lrytas.lt driver interviewed.
The abundance of officials was also noticed by Richard, who met him near the House of Lords, who immediately predicted that they would be related to important foreign politicians.
“Politicians are most likely coming, because otherwise there won’t be so many officials – either they are coming to a NATO meeting, or other high-ranking officials – we are the only ones protecting them”, joked Ričardas.
True, a news portal lrytas.lt interviewed Vilnius residents could not say who was coming to Vilnius or for what reason – but most guessed that important politicians were coming to see President Gitanas Nausėdas.
“Someone has come to see the president,” Birutė guessed.
Just as the summit was approaching, about 400 soldiers from different units of the Lithuanian army were deployed to ensure the security of Vilnius, who started performing security tasks from Monday.
Until the end of the event, the soldiers of the air defense battalion will move on public transport roads, they will carry out their tasks away from the main places of gathering of people.
The Three Seas Initiative is a platform for cooperation between the countries established in 2015. The first meeting of member leaders took place in 2016. in Croatia, and the last time in 2023. in autumn – the summit was held in Romania.
The initiative is currently chaired by Lithuania. Among the priority goals of Vilnius is the effort to promote greater involvement of strategic partners, investments, especially the transatlantic connection between the USA and the Three Seas Initiative region, as well as to develop a broader coalition of like-minded countries.
Countries are also encouraged to pay more attention to increasing infrastructure resilience and critical protection, the importance of military mobility, and cyber security.
In addition, Lithuania aims to bring together regional states and like-minded countries to strengthen and expand support for the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine – especially in the field of transport.
2024-04-11 13:07:56