Exclusive | Trump finally forced Europe to defend itself after years of dithering under Biden, Baltic defense official says: Do it now

President Trump has finally forced Europe to arm itself and “get serious” about defense after years of dithering under the Biden administration, says a Baltic defense official.Vaidotas Urbelis, defense policy director at Lithuania’s Ministry of Defense, warned that Russia only understands negotiating “with a gun on the table” — and that Europe must keep the pressure on the Kremlin.The emergency leaders’ summit in Brussels earlier this month showed that “Europe should be primarily responsible for European defense,” Vaidotas Urbelis, defense policy director at Lithuania’s Ministry of Defense told The Post.Speaking from Poland’s capital Warsaw, Urbelis praised Trump for “speeding things up” and trying to bring about an end to the war in Ukraine after years of “delayed decisions” under former President Joe Biden.“What the current US administration is doing, I think pretty successfully, is speeding things up,” he said.

“In political life, people tend to delay decision — ‘OK, maybe we’ll do it after one year, maybe after two years.’“And the current language of the US administration says to Europe, ‘Do it now, make decisions right now, because that’s your responsibility.’“So I would say the major threat is here, everyone understands it, but the speed and urgency of making things happen, that has changed,” Urbelis added.Lithuania, a country of less than 3 million people that borders the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and the pro-Putin regime in Belarus, vowed in January to boost its defense spending to up to 6% of its gross domestic product by next year.Citing “Russian military aggression,” the “historic decision” was announced by Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda, as his country became the first NATO nation to sign up to Trump’s call for all member states to reach 5% defense spending.The country spends just over 3% of its GDP on defense.The Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — which w...