High oil prices, circumvention of sanctions and state investments provide the aggressor country of russia with sufficient resources to continue the war in Ukraine at its current intensity for at least two more years.
This is reported by Reuters with reference to Lithuanian military intelligence.
It is noted that the russian federation reformed and strengthened its army, which was torn apart by the hostilities in Ukraine, in 2023, and is on the way to expanding its military potential along its border with NATO countries.
"Moscow is able to assess the lessons learned and increase its combat capability," the report says.
While only Iran and North Korea openly supply russia with arms and ammunition, China has become its largest supplier of microchips and the yuan has become the main currency for russia's international operations, intelligence agencies say.
The intelligence added that since russia deployed warheads in Belarus in 2023, it has been steadily building the infrastructure there to use them.
The report says that russian and Belarusian intelligence services have stepped up their efforts to recruit Lithuanians crossing the border, and Lithuania detained several of its citizens in 2023, whom it accused of providing data to Belarusian intelligence in exchange for cash.
As for China, the agencies said the PRC increased its espionage efforts in Lithuania in 2023 following Lithuania's decision to allow Taiwan to open a de facto embassy on its territory in 2021.
The report says that hackers "linked to China" regularly probe Lithuanian government institutions for vulnerabilities "with the aim of penetrating their networks and stealing data".
As a reminder, Lithuania suspects that the russian federation may sell grain from the occupied territories of Ukraine through the Baltic ports.
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