ANALYSIS: Lithuania lifts its constitutional ban on nuclear weapons — NATO shifts

Introduction: When a constitution adapts to a transformed geopolitics

The decision of July 2, 2026

On July 2, 2026, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda announced the removal of Article 137 from the Lithuanian constitution — an article that had, since the country's independence, banned the deployment of weapons of mass destruction and permanent foreign military bases on Lithuanian soil. The decision received support described as "practically unanimous" from parliament and government. It does not mean that Lithuania will host nuclear weapons tomorrow. It means the constitutional door is now open — a distinction that, in the geopolitical context of 2026, is itself a major strategic signal.

President Nauseda justified this decision with rare political frankness: "The geopolitical situation is deteriorating, and our constitution was written in entirely different circumstances." This sentence deserves to be read for its density. It says that the constitutional order of a sovereign state must adapt to the reality of the threat — a reality that Russia has irreversibly transformed since 2022. It is a declaration of political lucidity, not of escalation.

Why now — and not before

The legitimate question is: why 2026? Article 137 had existed since Lithuanian independence in 1990. Lithuania joined NATO in 2004. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Why did it take until 2026 for this constitutional revision? The most honest answer is that constitutional revisions are slow processes requiring political majorities that progressive crises can make possible. Each Russian escalation — 2014, 2022, the years that followed — consolidated a political consensus in Vilnius that finally reached the critical mass needed for a fundamental revision.

The 2026 decision is also tied to internal NATO discussions on nuclear sharing. If the alliance is seriously considering extending the deployment of dual-capable aircraft to Eastern Europe, candidate countries have an interest in removing their constitutional obstacles in advance — so as not to be forced to amend their constitution under the time pressure of an alliance decision.

The geography that explains everything: Vilnius between Moscow and Kaliningrad

A country made vulnerable by its geography

To understand the Lithuanian decision, look at a map. Lithuania shares a border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad — a militarized Russian territory, encircled between Lithuania and Poland, that hosts the Russian Baltic Fleet and significant ground and air forces. To the north, Lithuania borders Latvia, which in turn borders Estonia — and behind Estonia, Russia. To the east, Belarus — a de facto Russian ally and staging ground for Russian forces since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.

Within this geography, Lithuania is what military analysts call a "strategic salient" — a zone that a potential adversary might seek to cut off from the rest of the alliance via what is known as the "Suwalki Corridor": the roughly 100-kilometer Polish-Lithuanian strip of land separating Kaliningrad from Belarus. Securing this corridor is one of NATO's defensive priorities on the eastern flank. The potential deployment of dual-capable aircraft in Lithuania fits directly into this corridor defense logic.

The Finnish precedent of June 2026

Finland opened the door a month earlier

The Lithuanian decision does not arrive in a vacuum. In June 2026, Finland had taken a similar step, also by a parliamentary vote. Finland — which joined NATO in 2023 after decades of neutrality — had also revised its constitutional provisions on hosting nuclear weapons. This synchronized movement by Baltic and Nordic states is not coincidental. It reflects a coordination of defense postures among allies who share the same reading of the Russian threat.

The coordination between Finland and Lithuania on this issue illustrates a broader phenomenon: the eastern NATO flank countries are collectively revisiting their security doctrine in light of what they perceive as a long-term existential Russian threat. Their reading is that the war in Ukraine is not an isolated incident — it is the first act of a Russian challenge to the post-1991 European security order. This reading leads them to constitutional and doctrinal revisions that their Western European partners sometimes struggle to understand from their capitals more distant from the Russian border.

The Baltic states in strategic coordination

Lithuania is not acting alone. The three Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia — have since 2022 developed close coordination of their defense postures, often in synergy with Poland and the Nordic countries. This coordination covers defense spending, weapons procurement, joint exercises, and now constitutional revisions. The fact that Finland and Lithuania took similar steps within a month of each other reflects this concertation.

This regional coordination is one of the most significant developments in European security since the war in Ukraine began. The states that joined NATO after the Cold War — and are geographically closest to Russia — are building a regional security architecture that complements and reinforces the alliance framework. They are not asking their Western partners to protect them in their place — they are actively preparing their own defense.

NATO's great nuclear expansion: what the Financial Times reported

The largest nuclear sharing expansion since the Cold War

According to a Financial Times report, NATO was in 2026 discussing the largest expansion of its nuclear sharing program since the Cold War. Reported elements include discussions for the deployment of dual-capable aircraft (DCA) — planes capable of delivering B61 gravity nuclear bombs — in new member countries. Poland, the Baltic states, and other alliance members were among the countries interested.

B61 bombs are currently deployed in six NATO countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. All are based in Western Europe — with the exception of Turkey. A potential extension of the program to Eastern Europe would represent a major doctrinal shift: for the first time since the Cold War, NATO nuclear weapons would move significantly closer to the Russian border.

Poland and the Baltic states as priority candidates

Polish President Andrzej Duda had previously called for Poland to be included in NATO's nuclear sharing program — a request received with caution by allies but reflecting coherent strategic logic: Poland is one of the highest-spending defense countries in NATO (close to 4% of its GDP) and is geographically in the first line of exposure to the Russian threat via Kaliningrad and Belarus.

Extending nuclear sharing to new NATO members would be a break from the alliance's historical practice, which has maintained this program within founding Western European countries. It would reflect a new reality: the center of gravity of the threat to NATO has shifted eastward since 2022, and the alliance's doctrine must adapt to this new geography of danger.

The doctrine of Rutte, Macron, and new nuclear commitments

The NATO secretary general and Article 5

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte reaffirmed that "allies' commitment to Article 5 is ironclad" — the collective defense clause stating that an attack on one member is an attack on all. This declaration, made in the context of the Baltic constitutional revisions, is not rhetorical. It is a calculated response to what NATO allies perceive as a Russian policy of sowing doubt about Article 5 — the attempt to suggest that the United States and Western Europe would not intervene to defend alliance members closest to the Russian border.

French President Emmanuel Macron offered, for his part, French "advanced deterrence" — a proposal to extend French nuclear deterrence to other alliance members. This proposal remains formally complex to implement within the existing legal and doctrinal framework of NATO, but its public announcement sends a signal: France, the sole nuclear power in the EU since Brexit, is ready to play a more active role in collective European nuclear deterrence.

What Ukraine observes from these discussions

Kyiv and the question of Ukrainian nuclear deterrence

Ukraine observes the NATO nuclear sharing discussions with a particular and painful perspective. In 1994, Ukraine renounced the inherited Soviet nuclear arsenal — then the world's third largest — in exchange for security guarantees expressed in the Budapest Memorandum. The signatories: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia. Russia violated this memorandum manifestly in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea, then again in 2022 with the full-scale invasion.

This historical context gives a particular dimension to the Lithuanian and Finnish constitutional revisions. If non-nuclear security guarantees can be violated without sufficient consequences — as the Budapest Memorandum demonstrated — the logic of autonomous nuclear deterrence or nuclear sharing becomes more compelling for states that feel threatened. The Lithuanian decision is, in part, a response to the Ukrainian lesson of 1994.

Russia's response: between rhetoric and real preparation

The Kremlin's predictable reaction

The Kremlin's reaction to the Lithuanian and Finnish constitutional revisions was predictable: presenting these decisions as evidence of NATO's aggression and of the existential threat the alliance poses to Russia. This rhetoric is documented, repetitive, and structurally inverted: it attributes to NATO the consequences of Russian choices. But it has an audience — in Russia itself, and in certain countries that maintain an equidistant reading of the conflict.

Russia is not only in rhetoric. It has increased its military deployments in Kaliningrad, reinforced its forces in Belarus, and maintained its doctrine of preemptive nuclear threat. These concrete actions are the factual context within which the Lithuanian and Finnish decisions must be understood — not as a first provocation, but as a response to an accumulation of documented Russian military signals.

The credibility of the Russian nuclear threat

Vladimir Putin has on several occasions since 2022 evoked the possibility of using tactical nuclear weapons — notably in the event of an existential threat to Russia. This rhetoric was taken seriously by Western governments, which adjusted their military support to Ukraine accordingly — refusing for months to provide certain types of weapons to avoid perceived escalation. The outcome of this caution is debated: for some analysts, it delayed Ukrainian capabilities that could have shortened the war; for others, it effectively prevented nuclear escalation.

This debate about the credibility of the Russian nuclear threat is directly relevant to the Lithuanian decision. If Russia is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons to preserve its territorial gains in Ukraine, NATO nuclear deterrence in Eastern Europe is not a provocation — it is a logical response to a Russian military doctrine that has explicitly placed nuclear weapons on the table.

The NATO summit in Ankara: approaching decisions

July 7–8, 2026 as a crystallization moment

The NATO summit in Ankara on July 7–8, 2026 — five days after the Lithuanian announcement — is the first major alliance summit since discussions on nuclear sharing expansion gained momentum. Alliance members will discuss aid to Ukraine, defense spending, and the response to the Russian threat. The nuclear sharing question will, in all likelihood, be one of the most sensitive items on the informal agenda.

The Lithuanian constitutional revision, announced five days before the summit, is not unrelated to this calendar. Baltic and Nordic leaders have a tradition of creating political facts before summits to influence the agenda and decisions. The removal of Article 137 from the Lithuanian constitution sends a clear signal to NATO partners in Ankara: Lithuania is ready to host dual-capable aircraft if the collective decision is taken.

Conclusion: The geopolitics of deterrence extends eastward

What the Lithuanian decision actually changes

The removal of Article 137 from the Lithuanian constitution does not deploy nuclear weapons. It does not decide NATO policy. But it changes something real: it removes a constitutional barrier that would have technically complicated any future deployment decision. It also tells Russia — and the world — that Lithuania is ready to go further in its defense posture if the threat continues to grow. This declaration of intent is not an escalation. It is a response to Russian escalation — documented, permanent, and structural since 2022.

The remaining question is that of Moscow's response. The Lithuanian and Finnish decisions will almost certainly be presented by the Kremlin as evidence of NATO aggression — a predictable rhetoric that must be identified for what it is: a causal inversion. NATO did not move closer to Russia. Russia invaded a sovereign neighbor and transformed its relationship with its neighbors into a relationship of permanent existential threat. The Baltic constitutional revisions are the consequence of that Russian choice — not its cause.

NATO from Ankara to tomorrow

The Ankara summit will not take a formal decision on deploying nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe — this type of decision requires a consensus of 32 members that is not yet consolidated. But it will lay the groundwork for a formal reflection process that, given the ongoing constitutional revisions and persistent geopolitical pressures, could lead to results in the coming years. Lithuania has already done its part: it has removed the constitutional obstacle that could have blocked any future decision. The rest belongs to the alliance.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

What I am and what I am not

I am a columnist and analyst — not an expert in NATO nuclear doctrine. This analysis rests on public sources available as of July 2, 2026: President Nauseda's declaration, the CNBC report, the Reuters dispatch, the Financial Times report on internal NATO discussions, and analyses by 19FortyFive and Foreign Policy. The details of internal NATO discussions on nuclear sharing are classified — I work from publicly available elements.

Editorial biases and limits

I am pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine. I regard Russian expansion as a real threat that justifies significant defensive responses from allies. This positioning shapes the angle of this analysis — I do not treat the Lithuanian decision as an escalation, but as a proportionate response to a documented threat. Readers who hold a different position on the balance between deterrence and de-escalation will find other analyses in the sources cited.

Sources

Primary sources

CNBC — Russia-Ukraine-NATO: Lithuania and nuclear weapons — July 2, 2026

Reuters — Lithuania agrees to remove constitutional ban on nuclear weapons — July 2, 2026

Fakti.bg — Lithuania abolishes constitutional provision banning deployment of nuclear weapons on its soil — July 2, 2026

Secondary sources

19FortyFive — NATO is weighing the biggest expansion of its nuclear weapons sharing since the Cold War — June 2026

Foreign Policy — NATO summit: is the transatlantic alliance dead or alive? — July 1, 2026

Euromaidanpress — NATO coverage — July 2026