Do we like them?

Do we like Gitanas Nausėda?

Our score: 4 out of 10. Strong backing for Ukraine and a rebuke of ethnic slogans, set against a stance that blocked same-sex partnership recognition.

On Ukraine he's been about as clear as a head of state gets. In a January 2023 LRT interview he said NATO members shouldn't operate under red lines and should give Ukraine the arms it needs. In March 2025 he told Bloomberg that Lithuania was willing to commit troops to a post-ceasefire mission.

In March 2026 he took a public swing at the slogan “Lithuania for Lithuanians”, after a pretrial investigation opened into an incident at Independence Day commemorations in Vilnius. LRT reported he called it a relic of the past tied to troubling historical ideas. That's a president using his platform against ethnic exclusion, and it counts in his favour.

The harm check is where he gets complicated. In July 2021 he confirmed he would not have signed the partnership bill then before parliament. The reported reason was that it made partnership too much like marriage. A Chicago protester later held up a placard attacking his stance. LRT also reported that he had indicated he would have vetoed the law and had sent a greeting to an anti-LGBTQ rally that May.

The issue hasn't gone away. In 2023 the Freedom Party chair warned that a presidential veto of a union bill would cause an international scandal. By May 2026 LRT was reporting that, despite favourable court rulings, same-sex couples still faced new roadblocks. I couldn't open a full page on his latest position, so check where he stands now before you decide.

Away from that fight, I found no court rulings against him and no credible allegations. Nothing recent turned up that I could confirm either. The evidence file below is nearly empty because most pages wouldn't open in this session, not because the record is clean. On what I could verify, he's a solid ally on Ukraine and a poor one on LGBTQ+ rights.