The head of Lithuania’s military intelligence said that Russia has enough money to keep the war in Ukraine going at the same level of intensity for another two years.
Moscow says it started its “special military operation” in Ukraine a year ago to fight against a threat to national security. Kyiv and the rest of the West say it’s an unprovoked war to take over a free state.
“The resources Russia has right now would be enough to keep the war going at the same level for two years,” Elegijus Paulavicius, the head of Lithuania’s intelligence service, told reporters.
“How long Russia can keep fighting will also depend on how much help its military gets from countries like Iran and North Korea,” he said.
Paulavicius was talking about a report on national threats from Lithuania’s intelligence agencies. The report said that hackers with ties to the Russian and Chinese governments tried to break into Lithuanian government computers several times in 2022.
The agencies said, “Their top priority remains the long-term, continuous collection of information about Lithuanian internal and foreign affairs.”
It didn’t say if the attempts to hack were successful or not.
Lithuania has been one of the EU’s most vocal critics of Russia, and China was angry with it when it let Taiwan open a de facto embassy in 2021.
When asked for a comment, the Chinese envoy’s office in Vilnius did not respond right away. Russia has denied many times that it is hacking other countries.
Lithuania’s intelligence services said that the sanctions hadn’t hurt Russia’s ability to pay for its military, since it just took money away from public welfare and gave it to the military instead.
Russia uses “long chains of intermediaries” to get approved Western technologies, and its army is getting ready for a long-term fight with the West. It will focus on rebuilding its military presence in the Baltic Sea region, where it will remain “a threat and a source of instability.”
“This will depend a lot on how long the war in Ukraine lasts and how it ends. The longer and more expensive the war, the longer it will take,” the report said.
