Only those states who enjoy a potent civic society have chances for a peaceful existence.

This idea was voiced by Vytautas Liesionis, Member of the Lithuanian Riflemen’s Union, in his video-address to the 10th Youth Kyiv Security Forum, organized by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk “Open Ukraine” Foundation.

“NATO will assist those capable of fighting for themselves, though, alas, not from the first day, as we all witnessed. Be it military issues or information war – all have to engage in a fight”, – Mr Liesionis said.  

He mentioned that Lithuania has passed through certain history episodes when its citizens did nothing and passionately believed that all is fine. In 1940s Lithuania’s population was 3 million, and then the war came, and one third of the best ones was lost.

“Murderous Empire conducts negative selection of its own population as well as that of other countries wherever it steps in. There is no reasonable explanation why this happens. When I worked at a Military Academy in Lithuania I was engaged in a scientific research resulting in a simple answer to the above question: the Empire wished to turn the country into a prison cell”, - Mr Liesionis emphasized.

According to him, post 1990s Lithuania lost almost one third of its population. This was explained by economic reasons. Still, some later research demonstrated that a large number of Lithuanians left their homeland because it despised its citizens.

“Only 60% of entire population felt genuinely appreciated. One can pay due wages to one’s employees, but U-turning the cultural attitudes and ethics is a much more difficult endeavor. We engaged in a three-year project attempting to cultivate humaine leadership genes, humaine attitudes to one’s neighbors”, – he mentioned.

Yet another project aimed at dismantling old universities to the purpose of hatching the new quality educators and teachers. 
    
“We increased the number of student exchanges to study abroad. There is no other way to instill other cultural behavior patterns. If one wants to build a solid country one should start by instilling respect to teachers and doctors,” – Vytautas Liesionis concluded.

Youth Kyiv Security Forum is the leading platform to engage young leaders into discussion of national security issues and international relations agenda.