"Germany must send Taurus long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine without delay, because there are no good reasons not to do so. Prompt and high-quality military assistance to Ukraine is the number one priority for NATO countries and is now critical," said Karl A. Lamers at the annual Dr. Lamers NATO Hearings at Mykolas Romeris University (MRU). He said the Ukrainians do not lack courage - they lack ammunition.

Karl A. Lamers  was speaking on May 22nd, 2024, at the seventh annual Dr. Lamers NATO Hearings at the MRU. This year the topic of the Hearings was "NATO before the Washington Summit and beyond?".

Karl A. Lamers expressed his satisfaction with progress in the process of deployment of German brigade to Lithuania. He called to invest more in security by saying 3% of GDP is a new 2% of defence spending and stressed the sense of urgency in helping Ukraine to defend itself: in his words “Ukrainians are not running out of courage, they are running out of munitions”.

The keynote speaker of the discussion traditionally is Prof. h. c. Dr. Karl A. Lamers, a former long-time member of the Defence Committee of the Bundestag. He is the former President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, a renowned German lawmaker with decades of high-level experience in transatlantic security issues and an old friend of MRU.

Petras Auštrevičius, Member of the European Parliament and former Chief Negotiator in Lithuania's accession negotiations, and representative of the Liberal Movement, also participated in the discussion.

Second participant of the panel was Juozas Olekas, member of European Parliament and former Lithuanian Defence Minister, who reflected that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine united NATO even more, at the same time J. Olekas pressed for speeding up military help to Ukraine as supplies are coming in way too slow.

Linas Kojala, an independent commentator and head of the Centre for East European Studies, pointed out that expectations of the Washington summit are too high. In his opinion, it is unrealistic to expect Washington to change the supercommittee's stance on Ukraine's NATO membership in any substantial way.

Lithuanian Defence Ministry was represented by Defence Vice Minister Žilvinas Tomkus, who suggested that political will generated among NATO allies must be followed by the will to implement what is agreed upon. In his view, NATO stance on Russia is rather reactive than proactive, and, actually, more resolute move towards Ukrainian NATO membership would mean the Alliance is getting proactive on the strategic level.

Petro Biestto, Ukraine's Ambassador to Lithuania, who observed the discussion, commented that NATO should grant Ukraine membership of the Alliance now to help it win against Russia, rather than waiting for the end of the war to come to an end before discussing the question of membership.

The moderator of the Hearings traditionally was MRU Assoc. Prof. Dr. Virgis Valentinavičius from the Institute of Communication.

The Hearings were attended by a significant number of Ambassadors or representatives of the embassies of foreign countries based in Vilnius. In the audience there were numerous students and faculty of the MRU, as well as leaders of the management of the MRU. Among the public there were students who are taking part in the academic essay competition, sponsored by Lamers Peace Foundation. The Foundation is funding the Peace Prize Competition, including provision of prize money: 1000 Euros for the winner, 600 Euros for the second place and 400 euros for the third place. More about the year 2024 Peace Prize Competition please read here.