Lithuania marks NATO membership anniversary with flag-raising ceremonies

Lithuania will raise national and NATO flags across the country on Sunday to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of its accession to the alliance, LRT reports.

A ceremonial flag-raising event will take place at noon in Vilnius’ Lukiškės Square, featuring the Lithuanian Armed Forces’ Honour Guard Company and a platoon of cadets from the Lithuanian Military Academy carrying NATO member-state flags. The ceremony will include the hoisting of flags, the singing of anthems, and a parade of allied forces stationed in Lithuania.

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

The anniversary was also marked in Šiauliai on Saturday with the traditional “Runway Run 2025,” a 3-kilometre race along the city’s military airfield runway. Participants included Lithuanian troops, allied forces, and civilian enthusiasts.

Lithuania officially became a full NATO member on March 29, 2004, when then-Prime Minister Algirdas Mykolas Brazauskas, alongside leaders from Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia, submitted ratification documents to US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington.

The country’s bid for NATO membership began in 1994, when President Brazauskas sent a formal letter to then-NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner, outlining Lithuania’s cross-party consensus on joining the alliance.