Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda criticized a new UN political world map that depicts temporarily occupied Crimea in a different color from Ukraine. He stressed that maps used by the United Nations must comply with international law and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.
This was reported by LRT.
Nausėda raised the issue during a meeting of the Baltic leaders with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in New York. According to him, Lithuania supports efforts to make the cartographic representation of the world more accurate, but the policy of non-recognition of Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia must be applied consistently.
The new map was backed by the UN General Assembly as part of the “Correct the Map” initiative, which is intended to more accurately reflect the actual relative sizes of continents and reduce distortions associated with the Mercator projection. The resolution was supported by 164 countries, while the United States voted against it and Ukraine, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova and Serbia abstained.
On the new map, Ukraine is shown in one color, while Crimea is marked in grey, which prompted criticism from Kyiv and Vilnius. Lithuanian authorities stressed that Crimea and other Ukrainian territories temporarily occupied by Russia remain part of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.
During the meeting with Guterres, Nausėda also said that Russia remains the main long-term threat to European and transatlantic security and that the threat is not limited to Ukraine.
