Lithuania’s Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė has dismissed Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė after a massive bust-up over the Baltic country’s defense budget.

The public rift saw Ruginienė last week criticizing fellow Social Democrat Šakalienė for lobbying on the budget behind the government’s back, as Vilnius considers how best to counter potential Russian aggression.

Lithuania is one of the three Baltic nations neighboring Russia. It’s increasingly preparing for a potential attack from Moscow by boosting military expenditure and strengthening its borders to fend off an invasion.

Šakalienė’s defense ministry had indicated that next year’s military budget would be lower than planned and reportedly sought to pressure the government to increase it during an unofficial meeting with influencers and journalists.

“The events of recent weeks were really just the final straw,” the prime minister told reporters on Wednesday after meeting with President Gitanas Nausėda. “While this decision [to boot Šakalienė] came sooner than expected, it may have been unavoidable,” she said.

In a scathing rebuke, Ruginienė cited dishonesty, “a complete lack of willingness to cooperate,” poor team management and “various small details” as reasons for dismissing Šakalienė.

“It is unfortunate that I have to take this decision and it is certainly a challenging moment for me as Prime Minister,” Ruginienė said.

Šakalienė said she’d resigned rather than being pushed out. “I kept my promise. The resignation letter was sent this morning at 10 a.m.” she said in a Facebook post, in which she acknowledged that working with her “was not for the faint-hearted.”

“Just a month ago, I had hoped that we could work with the prime minister, but unfortunately, we cannot, as we have fundamentally different views on how to strengthen national defense,” she added.

The government has proposed spending 5.38 percent of GDP on defense in 2026, but it still needs to be approved by the parliament.

Šakalienė shared photos of budget slides presented at the government meeting on Oct. 1, allocating 4.87 percent of GDP to defense — and an email from the finance ministry on the evening of Oct. 14, the day of the unofficial meeting, which increased the defense budget to 5.38 percent of GDP.

Asked whether the initial defense budget was indeed smaller, which triggered Šakalienė’s controversial lobbying session, Ruginienė said it was “strange to interpret draft versions.”

“It doesn’t matter when you season the soup — what matters is the final result. The same applies to the budget: what counts is the final outcome, and that’s what’s important,” she said.

This is the second ministerial exit since Ruginienė took office in August. Culture Minister Ignotas Adomavičius resigned after just one week in October, following public backlash and protests from Lithuania’s cultural community over the allocation of the related ministry to the populist party Dawn of Nemunas. The Social Democrats have since taken over the culture ministry and are currently searching for a new minister.

Potential candidates for defense minister have already been discussed with the president, though Ruginienė has not released any names.

Until a new minister is appointed, Interior Minister Vladislavas Kondratovičius will temporarily lead one of the Baltic country’s most strategic ministries.

“It is especially important to select the right defense minister, since the defense budget is an absolute priority both for us and for the prime minister,” said Nausėda’s chief adviser on national security, Deividas Matulionis, calling the budget for defense “historical.”

“This is not just an internal security issue; it is a matter of our international image. The future deployment of a German brigade and the presence of American troops depend on it. Everything is at stake,” he told reporters Wednesday.

Šakalienė, in her Facebook post, said that the defense budget cannot be below 5.5 percent of GDP.

“This year, the Ministry of Defense managed to secure 5.38 percent (after the well-known Oct. 14 meeting), but funding gaps remain, and some planned acquisitions will have to be canceled,” she said.