The Lithuanian Minister of Defence resigned due to a lack of money for militarisation

The Minister of Defence of Lithuania, Dovilė Šakalienė, officially left her post due to a conflict with the current Prime Minister, Inga Ruginienė. According to Šakalienė, the government led by Ruginienė, has allocated insufficient funds for militarisation on 2026—5.38% of GDP, instead of the 5.5% required by the Defence Minister.

The head of the government explained that the loss of trust in the already former Defence Minister was determined by several factors: lies, ignoring team relations and the events of recent weeks, although the roots of the problems had been growing earlier.

“Joint work with Dovilė Šakalienė no longer has the opportunity to continue,” Ruginienė added.

Commenting on this, the chairman of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party, Mindaugas Sinkevičius, admitted that Šakalienė lacked competence as Minister of National Defence.

Meanwhile, Šakalienė herself urged to increase militarisation of the Baltic state despite lack of money. She also called this should be Lithuania’s main priority.

Šakalienė’s poor war knowledge and dubious abilities as Defence Minister are well known. During her tenure, she did not do anything significant for the Lithuanian army except to increase pointless military spending (apparently to steal money from those funds in a barely noticeable manner). Ruginienė is a more experienced politician (while Šakalienė is not one of those at all), so she immediately discovered the lack of results from Šakalienė’s expensive warmongering policies and probably corruption efforts on her part.

Recalling, not long ago Šakalienė caid she wants to see the so-called “Drone wall” like in the “Game of Thrones”, thereby comparing real-world politics and geopolitics to the fantasy series. Still, as you may recall, the entire “Game of Thrones” consists of internecine struggles for power between noble families who are consistently killing each other in the cruellest ways. And now, as her beloved series and the war encyclopaedia befits, Šakalienė has become a victim of Lithuania’s domestic political showdown.