After 25 years of independence, Lithuania worries that Nato splits and US isolationism might open the door to Russian aggression

Donald Trump appeared overnight on a wall in the Lithuanian capital this spring – larger than lifesize and locked in a kiss with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The mural was meant as satire, a nod to the unexpected mutual appreciation between two macho demagogues on opposite sides of the world, and a wink at the long shadow of Soviet history that still hangs over the region.

Now, with Trump president-elect and America’s commitment to protecting the Baltics in question for the first time in decades, it seems to express something much darker.

“This was a joke, about two tyrants,” said artist Mindaugas Bonanu, whose image references a famous photo of two socialist leaders kissing that later became a Berlin wall mural. “At the beginning we just wanted to show two douchebags kissing each other somewhere in the border between east and west. Now it’s a symbol of how darkest dreams can come true.”

Trump’s victory has been greeted with trepidation far beyond America’s borders. His confusing collection of policy promises and pride in his own unpredictability threaten disruption to the geopolitical order from South Korea to Syria.

But those fears are felt particularly keenly in the Baltic states, western outposts of the Soviet empire less than three decades ago, now vulnerable republics on the doorstep of an increasingly assertive Russia.

For years in Lithuania, fear of their former occupiers has been tempered by a firm belief that America was covering their backs. Etched into the wall of city hall in Vilnius is a passage from a 2002 speech by George W Bush, long-forgotten in Washington DC but national legend here. “Anyone who would choose Lithuania as an enemy has also made an enemy of the United States of America,” it proclaims. That decisive vote of confidence came even before the still-new nation and its neighbouring Baltic states had been welcomed into Nato, and helped underpin the region’s renaissance.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Vilnius old town: Trump’s rise has left the country wondering if the US will keep its promises. Photograph: Angel Villalba/Getty Images

Now, 15 years later, they are worrying for the first time if the promise will hold. Lithuanians and other Baltic nations have been concerned since Trump rose to prominence as a candidate about his apparent admiration for Putin, a man they see as a dangerous and predatory autocrat.

They have watched the Russian leader foment war in Georgia and Ukraine, and seize Crimea, and have warned that they could be next, if Putin believes the protection from their US and European allies is faltering.

“What we are trying to say is that everything we have achieved over the past 25 years is at stake,” said Vaidotas Urbelis of the defence ministry, laying out the growing threat to Lithuania from Russian aggression.

Few in this tiny nation of three million think they could stand alone against their vast neighbour.

So when, in the run-up to the election, Trump refused to confirm his commitment to Nato, it brought their worst fear a step closer. He had already demanded that the alliance’s European members raise their defence spending if they want to enjoy the security it provides. Lithuania, which recently reintroduced conscription and expects to meet the Nato spending target next year, has no quibbles with that.

“Some of the comments were quite legitimate I would say: criticism with regard to Europeans who are not paying enough attention to their own security, not spending enough resources,” said foreign minister Linas Linkevičius.

More disturbing were remarks in a New York Times interview in July, when he appeared to question the commitment to common defence that lies at the heart of the alliance, enshrined as article five of its constitution.

Asked if Nato members “including the new members in the Baltics” could count on the US if attacked by Russia, he said: “Have they fulfilled their obligations to us? If they fulfil their obligations to us, the answer is yes.”

Nobody in Lithuania wants to jeopardise the country’s most important relationship before Trump has even taken office. Politicians from across the spectrum are insisting that his comments were just campaign talk, while frantically seeking reassurance from Trump’s Republican allies. Congressman Peter King promised Baltic nations on election night that the US would honour its Nato commitments: “America will be there. Donald Trump will be there.”

But nor are they mincing words about what is at stake. If Trump backs away from the principle of common defence – which has been invoked only once – after the 9/11 attacks – some Lithuanians believe the alliance will be destroyed, and one of Putin’s main goals achieved. “If article five is revisited, it will be bad not just for Lithuania but for Europe and the entire north Atlantic community,” Linkevičius said. “If we agree that Nato is still important and relevant ... article five is at the core.”

Even more chilling for those willing to trust Trump was just indulging in election politicking were remarks from key ally Newt Gingrich, who dismissed Estonia – the only Baltic nation that has hit Nato military spending targets for years – as virtually part of Russia and barely worth defending. “I’m not sure I would risk a nuclear war over some place which is the suburbs of St Petersburg,” he told CBS.

Many thought this sounded like a line from Putin’s propaganda playbook. Russia’s president would love to see the end of Nato, which he considers a hostile force expanding on his doorstep, and most in the Baltic states believe he resents their independence.

Recent Russian war games have, says Urbelis, included simulated operations on Nato territory. “The biggest question is, what are the Russians up to? Are they really prepared to risk a big war for the Baltic states? What’s the prize? Nato? Take some pieces of Nato territory and make it obsolete?”

Critics have accused Lithuanians of paranoia about Russia. “You have a kind of phantom limb syndrome – the Soviet Union is gone but you still feel the pain,” a mocking European politician told his Lithuanian counterpart a few years ago.

But Lithuanians argue they are simply realists, who have learned from bitter experience that they will pay for naivety with blood. Soviet occupation is still vivid, living memory for many, and history gives further cause for wariness of their vast neighbour. Once a regional power, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania came under Moscow’s control in the 18th century, when Russia also tried to stamp out Lithuanian identity, banning books in Lithuanian and persecuting the Roman Catholic church.

Their concerns are anything but theoretical. Immediately south-west of Lithuania is the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, where it has been ramping up troops and military hardware. Those weapons, and Russia’s close relationship with neighbouring Belarus, means the Baltics could be swiftly cut off from the rest of Europe, if Lithuania’s short stretch of border with Poland was threatened.

“You could call it [Kaliningrad] an unsinkable aircraft carrier … which could prevent forces coming to the Baltics,” said Urbelis.

This could make defending the Baltics so costly to Nato, in lives and weapons, that many fear they would be abandoned to their fate. This is one reason that a cast-iron promise of mutual defence is so important, but Baltic nations have also been asking for more troops inside the area they fear that Russia might try to seal off.

Propaganda wars and real Russian aggression have made other nations more receptive to Baltic warnings. “We joke that Russia helped us promote this work,” says Tomas Ceponis of the ministry of defence’s information warfare department. “Crimea and Georgia were eye-openers.”

Up to 4,000 Nato troops are being stationed in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and the alliance is increasing its own war games in the region. But many in Lithuania fear that years of ignoring Russia’s threat have left their country vulnerable.

“The past eight years have changed the strategic situation in Europe, and Putin was allowed to do that,” says former minister of defence Rasa Juknevičienė. “Now we are living a very dangerous situation in Europe.”

At a former courthouse used by the KGB and Gestapo as prison, torture chamber, interrogation centre and execution cell, the grim memory of the Soviet Union has been preserved, as memorial and warning. Trump’s election makes its message, for some Lithuanians, all the more urgent.

“I am a little bit scared,” admits Darius, a 23-year-old history student who works there as a guide. “History is terrible: I hope it will not be repeated.”