Lithuania marks 22nd anniversary of NATO membership with flag-raising ceremonies

Lithuania will commemorate the 22nd anniversary of its NATO accession on Sunday with a flag-raising ceremony in Vilnius’ Lukiškių Square, state news agency ELTA reports.

The midday event will feature the Lithuanian Armed Forces’ Honour Guard Company and a detachment of cadets from the Lithuanian Military Academy bearing NATO member-state flags. National and alliance anthems will be performed as the flags of Lithuania and NATO are hoisted, followed by a procession of allied forces stationed in Lithuania.

Municipalities nationwide have also been invited to participate by raising Lithuanian and NATO flags in their communities.

The anniversary was marked in advance on Saturday in Šiauliai, where the traditional “Runway Run 2025” took place—a 3-kilometre race along the Šiauliai military airfield’s runway. Participants included Lithuanian troops, allied personnel, and civilian enthusiasts.

Lithuania formally joined NATO on March 29, 2004, when then-Prime Minister Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas, alongside leaders from Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia, submitted ratification documents of the Washington Treaty to US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington, DC.

The country’s pursuit of NATO membership began a decade earlier, when President Brazauskas sent a formal letter of intent to NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner on January 4, 1994. The letter outlined Lithuania’s consensus-backed ambition to join the alliance, following a cross-party parliamentary agreement.