https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/7a8e308d-f616-4eeb-9f61-c802f3d90952 NATO leaders have converged on Ankara, with this year’s alliance summit devoted primarily to checking up on which members are meeting the 5% NATO target. Some countries are still lagging behind, while others, such as Poland and the Baltic states, lead the way. But how painful actually is it to spend that much money on weapons everyone hopes will never see use? “To reach defense spending that amounts to 5% of GDP is not a very easy task because other programs like health care, education, social security, they suffer from that,” President of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs told TVP World on the sidelines of the NATO summit hosted in Ankara. “That money would, in different circumstances, be much better spent on different programs that people find equally important as security.” But as Rinkēvičs points out, being neighbors with Russia, as well as Belarus, offers little choice in these matters. “Countries that are closer to Russia understand the threat much better than countries that are probably somewhere farther away from Russia,” Latvia’s President said, referring as much to Russian current actions in Ukraine as the Latvians’ own historical experiences with Moscow rule. “So, from that perspective, my message would be: if we want to avoid a large-scale war or hybrid war, if we want to avoid much more spending in the future (...) it’s better to spend 5% on defense as some form of deterrence,” Rinkēvičs said. Join TVP World’s Zuzanna Jurek and her guest, as they discuss whether he believes Vladimir Putin could venture to attack a NATO country, such as Latvia, how hybrid warfare conducted by the Kremlin evolved since the start of the war, and would Latvia be willing to host nuclear weapons if that meant strenghtening nuclear deterrence. #nato #summit #ankara #defense 🔴 Watch our 24/7 livestream - https://youtube.com/live/9RY46AUtIl4 Bringing you all the latest daily news and updates, TVP World is Poland's first English-language channel where you can find world news as seen from the Polish perspective and the latest news from the CEE region. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. https://tvpworld.com/ https://www.facebook.com/tvpworldcom https://twitter.com/TVPWorld_com https://www.instagram.com/tvp_world/ https://www.threads.net/@tvp_world https://bsky.app/profile/tvpworld.bsky.social https://www.tiktok.com/@tvpworld.com https://t.me/tvp_world Wed, 08 Jul 2026 21:05:51 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.echelon.pl https://video.echelon.pl/client/assets/images/icons/icon-1500x1500.png https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/7a8e308d-f616-4eeb-9f61-c802f3d90952 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.echelon.pl/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.