Third countries’ intelligence services are looking for ways to influence on Lithuania’s domestic policy and other processes, Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis said when commenting on October’s detention of a group of suspected of spying for Russia. According to the investigators, their one-year activity was intentional.
“In the course of the preliminary investigation, searches were conducted at the places of living of most of them. At the moment, all the suspects are citizens of Lithuania, except for one, a citizen of the Russian Federation,” Linas Pernavas, Commissioner General of the Lithuanian Police, said at the press conference.
The number of detainees and interrogated persons is classified, but the country’s security services revealed the name of one of the prime suspects: it is Algirdas Paleckis, a former deputy mayor of Vilnius, a former chairman of the Socialist People’s Front, a former member of the Seimas. The evidence reportedly confirms his collecting sensitive political information.
“The case indicated the truth of the Lithuanian intelligence’s recent report on the threat from Russia which, unfortunately, continues to actively jockey for influence on political processes in Lithuania. As part of it, they recruit people who stand an opportunity to directly or indirectly form the agenda of the political parties, their structure and help strengthen Russia’s soft power by using media outlets,” Darius Jauniskis, Director of the Lithuanian State Security Department, said.
Algirdas Paleckis is son of Justas Vincas Paleckis, a Soviet-Lithuanian diplomat and pro-European politician, who repeatedly raised his voice in support of independent Belarus, including on belsat TV airwaves. Mr Algirdas is also a grandson of Justas Paleckis, who collaborated with the Soviet authorities during the occupation of 1940 and became the first head of government of the Lithuanian SSR. According to political analysts, the Socialist People’s Front headed by Algirdas Paleckis has always lacked popular support.
“All these people who performed tasks for the Russian intelligence services, are linked to the political parties which are not present in the Parliament. This case is standing out due to the fact that the Russian intelligence was aiming at the most hot-button topics for the Lithuanian society,” Prosecutor General Evaldas Pasilis said.
For example, the events of January 1991, when Soviet troops entered independent Lithuania on the order of Mikhail Gorbachev, shot civilians and ran them over by shed by tanks during the storming of the TV station. Algirdas Paleckis was fined for public denial of this fact of the Soviet occupation.
Moscow called the detention a display of Russophobia. „It is not Russia who should be lecturing on democratic freedoms the world,” Lithuanian Minister Linas Linkevicius responded.
Over the past four years, 12 persons have been accused of spying for Russian or Belarusian intelligence services in Lithuania. Five of them were sentenced to prison terms.
Belsat.eu
