By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, 7/5/26

Lithuania intends to lift its ban on the deployment of nuclear weapons, the country’s president has said, as more NATO countries seek to host US nuclear bombs amid soaring tensions with Russia over the war in Ukraine.

“We would like to be the integral part of this nuclear deterrence,” said Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda, according to AFP. “A few days ago, I initiated a constitutional amendment to remove the existing restriction on the possible deployment of nuclear weapons in Lithuania.”

The amendment needs to be approved by Lithuania’s parliament, which Nauseda expects, as he said there is “practically unanimous” support among lawmakers for repealing the ban outlined in Article 137 of Lithuania’s Constitution.

“Almost all parliamentary faction leaders expressed the view that Article 137 has become obsolete and should not merely be amended but removed,” Nauseda said.

The announcement came a few weeks after Finland, NATO’s newest member, repealed its ban on hosting nuclear weapons. Finland’s move and Lithuania’s potential repeal will open the countries up to potentially hosting US nuclear weapons as part of NATO’s nuclear sharing program, under which the US has nukes deployed in Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Turkey.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has said Finland’s move requires a response, and former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, known for his hawkish rhetoric, said Finland, which shares a more than 800-mile border with Russia, is now on Russia’s “nuclear target list.”

Lithuania shares a border with Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus, where Russia deployed nuclear weapons in 2023. When announcing his decision to place nukes in Belarus, Russian President Vladimir Putin referenced NATO’s nuclear sharing program.

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Russia Matters: Russia Gains 31 Square Miles in Past 4 Weeks, Ukraine Lacks Anti-Ballistic Means

Russia Matters, 7/10/26

1. Russian forces made a net gain of 31 square miles of Ukrainian territory (slightly larger than the size of Manhattan Island) in the past four weeks (June 9–July 7), according to the latest issue of RM’s Russia-Ukraine War Report Card (based on data from Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT group). In comparison, during the previous four-week period (May 12–June 9, 2026), Russia lost a net of 1 square mile, according to DeepState’s data. In contrast, ISW data indicates that in the past four weeks (June 9–July 7, 2026), Russian forces saw a net gain of 6 square miles of Ukrainian territory, according to the July 8, 2026, issue of the war card.
2. Volodymyr Zelenskyy told FT the war’s decisive phase has shifted to “the sky.” But Ukraine’s greatest vulnerability is a critical shortage of antiballistic air defenses, especially Patriot interceptors capable of intercepting ballistic missiles. In a July 6 Russian strike involving 29 ballistic missiles and hundreds of drones, Ukraine failed to shoot down a single ballistic missile, according to FT. While Ukraine has intercepted about 90% of Russian long-range drones and 80% of 722 cruise missiles fired in 2026—70% of 522 ballistic missiles have gotten through, according to WSJ. Ukraine’s Patriot/PAC3 stocks are so low since the beginning of the Iran war, that launchers “sometimes sit half empty,” according to NYT. It is well understood that Ukraine effectively lacks a robust ballistic missile-defense shield, but hopes for large numbers of Patriot PAC3 interceptors are fanciful since the U.S. is currently manufacturing roughly 620 PAC3s per year, and several higher priority claimants—starting with U.S. forces in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific—are already in the queue before any substantial number will reach Kyiv. While announcements at the NATO summit about the U.S. giving Ukraine a license provided a bright shinny object to distract from the brute facts, in the real world, it will take years before Ukraine produces the first Patriot. There’s also the IRIS-T system, which Germany makes. It has some capability to shoot down ballistic missiles, but it is inferior to the Patriot’s. Some 20 units of IRIS-T have been delivered to Ukraine so far, according to a June 2026 report by Reuters.*
3. WSJ’s Gerard Baker writes that senior European military and intelligence officials increasingly fear Vladimir Putin may test NATO with limited “probe” operations rather than a full-scale invasion along NATO’s eastern border—seizing small Baltic islands, staging an “assistance” incursion to protect Russian speakers in Estonia or similar moves that Moscow could frame as retaliation or humanitarian intervention. Any such step would force NATO to decide whether to respond with force; if the U.S. hesitated and the alliance failed to act, Baker argues, it would fatally undermine Article 5 and effectively destroy NATO’s credibility. Baker’s argument that Vladimir Putin could seek to exploit a perceived window of Western vulnerability in Europe deserves serious consideration. The most plausible scenarios are not a large-scale invasion, but a limited provocation against a vulnerable NATO member. Baker warns that Russia could seize Baltic islands or stage an intervention purportedly to protect Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia. His warning closely resembles long-discussed concerns about Russian exploitation of ethnic minority issues in the Baltic states. Russia has no widely recognized competing sovereignty claims over NATO-held islands, making such an operation more likely a fait accompli rather than the assertion of an existing legal dispute.
4. Threats to Starlink: Leaked Chinese and Russian military documents depict Starlink as a frontline threat and primary target, not just a commercial satellite network, Sinocism reports, citing a joint investigation by The Insider, Der Spiegel and Le Monde. At a secret 2023 China–Russia military-technical forum in Guangzhou, senior engineers from the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation outlined an “antiStarlink alliance” built around a three-stage escalation ladder: jamming Starlink signals, hacking the network and ultimately physically destroying satellites in orbit, according to the July 9, 2026, Sinocism report.
5. Czech President Petr Pavel warned Ukraine has roughly two months to make decisive progress toward ending the war before Russia’s Sept. 20 parliamentary elections. Afterward, he believes Putin may launch a highly unpopular general mobilization, according to RBC.ua. Pavel urged Ukraine’s allies to exert pressure on Russia to secure peace talks in the coming weeks. “Russia currently faces many internal problems and challenges. The Russian public is increasingly opposed to the war. It will be difficult for Putin to maintain calm at home,” the Czech president claimed. While Pavel pointed to Russia’s problems in his comments, the comments can also be interpreted as a warning that it is Ukraine that may be running out of time when it comes to holding peace talks.