Poland and Baltics want increased NATO presence in the region

A focal point at the meeting was to discuss the strengthening of the Baltic region’s security as well as support for Ukraine.

At the meeting Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, urged the international community to respond to Kyiv’s appeals for an accelerated delivery of heavy equipment.

"In this unequal fight Ukraine needs more help," Rau said. "The international community should urgently respond to Kyiv’s appeals to accelerate the delivery of heavy equipment necessary to push the Russians away. The coming weeks might be crucial in Ukraine's fight against Russia and we must support their heroic battle for freedom," he added.

"Poland would be independent from the deliveries of oil and gas from Russia by the by the end of this year anyway, and I suppose that this decision by Gazprom will make it easier for us to persuade our European friends and partners to just to follow our example and give up the deliveries of gas and oil from Russian Federation," Poland's foreign minister said.

"What we want to achieve is clearly the bolstering of number of troops to the Baltic States and Poland, we’re talking about the brigade size units in our countries," said Latvian Foreign Ministers Edgars Rinkevics.

"Actually, I think that our greatest friend partner and ally is the Russian Federation. They got us into the NATO. They got NATO troops in the Baltics. And now they are helping the European Union to get rid of the dependency on gas and oil. And I think that actually what we can do is to establish the kind of order of friendship with Russia and those guys who are doing all those mistakes all the time," he said.

"But on a serious note, first of all our support and solidarity with Poland and Bulgaria, I think that Russia is now demonstrating to the whole Europe, the whole world that it is not a reliable partner. And I think that actually it helps to make those countries that are still thinking about continuing business with Russia when it comes to oil and gas to make the decisions," Rinkevics added.

Most of the heavy weapons NATO countries have sent to Ukraine so far are Soviet-built arms still in the inventories of east European NATO member states, but the United States and some other allies have started to supply Kyiv with Western howitzers.

Germany on Tuesday (April 26) announced the shipment of Gepard tanks equipped with anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, the first time Berlin has approved heavy weapons deliveries for Kyiv.

Commenting on the Kremlin's decision to suspend gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said at the news briefing: "What Gazprom is doing with Russian leadership permission is testing European Union. I think that they are showing that they are able or at least to try to be able to divide us."

"This could this could be a message to countries like Germany, Austria and others who might be thinking now what is their stance on the sanction package. What can be done? I think that our four countries have some excellent examples in coordination and cooperation," he added.