“For 700 years of war with Russia”: For Lithuania, Ukraine’s struggle is its own “William has expressed doubts about marriage to Meghan” – latest Harry News

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Lithuania, a country with less than three million inhabitants, has received unusual attention. Anyone who sees through the worst possible course of events and almost always thinks of a direct military confrontation between Russia and the West also thinks of the southernmost of the three Baltic republics.

In the southwest, the NATO country borders the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad; the capital Vilnius in southeastern Lithuania is only twenty kilometers from Belarus, the realm of Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko.

It is cold in Vilnius; Icicles hang from the gutters and walking on the sidewalks becomes a balancing act. Yet in many places the city exudes an almost southern cheerfulness: baroque churches characterize the center. Like Poles and unlike their Baltic neighbours, most Lithuanians are Catholic. New shops and restaurants show how much the country has caught up economically in recent decades.

Don’t be afraid of Beijing and Moscow

There is a bungalow on the edge of the old town, in a neighborhood that is reminiscent of Russia with its colorful wooden houses. It is the seat of the Eastern Europe Studies Centre, a think tank sponsored by the government and Vilnius University. Linas Kojala, the director, is only 32 years old. Residences in Oxford and Harvard grace the political scientist’s curriculum vitae.

Lithuania may be small, but its foreign policy seems confident: in September 2022, Vilnius opened a representative office in Taiwan; Beijing then withdrew its ambassador. Challenging China when Russia is on the doorstep – isn’t that naive? “It is still too early to weigh the pros and cons of our China policy,” Kojala replies diplomatically.

However, the Lithuanian government has not properly considered the economic consequences. “Beijing imposed secondary sanctions. Suddenly, in Chinese ports, it was said that there was no country named Lithuania in the data records. » So Lithuanian goods had to stay outside.

The new policy certainly has one benefit: “We are being heard in Washington,” Kojala explains. Some in Vilnius feared that America would eventually lose interest in Europe. “We wanted to show that we understood that China is the real opponent in the long run. We are not a country that cares about only one thing.” Washington, not Brussels, Berlin or Paris, is crucial for many Lithuanians. “Only the United States can exercise effective military power,” says Kojala. “Europe cannot defend itself alone .”

The boys learn English instead of Russian

A plaque on the Vilnius Town Hall commemorates the visit of a politician who is not highly regarded in Western Europe: “Anyone who makes an enemy of Lithuania also makes an enemy of the United States,” quotes George W. Bush (Lithuanian: Džordžas Volkeris Bušas) in 2002. Not only the EU flag flies in front of the nearby presidential palace, but also that of NATO: a sight you hardly see in Western European capitals.

The westward push is understandable: in the past, Lithuania’s fate was all too often determined by its overpowering neighbor to the east: in 1795, the country became a province of the Tsarist Empire. It gained independence at the end of World War I, but this was short-lived: in World War II, the Red Army liberated the Baltic States from German occupation, but then the Soviets forgot to leave, as some Lithuanians ironically say.

“We have been at war with Russia for 700 years,” explains Marius Ivaškevičius in a cafe in Vilnius Old Town. “Everything in between was a break.” The 49-year-old is one of the most important playwrights in Lithuania. Recently his plays have also been performed in Russia; In 2017 he received a renowned theater award there.

“I still have contact with Russians, but only with those who left the country,” says Ivaškevičius. “Otherwise there is mutual silence.” Anyone who stays in Putin’s Reich and continues to pursue a career behaves like those Germans who came to terms with the Nazis.

Unlike the Georgians or Central Asians, the Balts enjoyed certain privileges during the communist era: schools were taught in the national languages; However, everyone had to learn Russian. “Everyone over 35 speaks Russian, while young people no longer speak it,” reports Ivaškevičius. His ex-wife wanted their daughter to learn French. “I begged for Russian. You must understand the language of the enemy. I was joking then.”

The state supports Russian exiles

While ethnic Russians make up about a quarter of the population in Estonia and Latvia, the Russian minority in Lithuania is relatively small. The Lithuanians are therefore less afraid of attempts to influence Moscow than their northern neighbors. “Hardly anyone here in Vilnius treats me suspiciously because I am Russian,” says Dmitry Koletsev. This also has to do with the fact that the Ukrainian refugees mostly came from the east of the country and spoke Russian. The Lithuanians hardly noticed the difference.

Koletsev is a petite, serious man with metal-rimmed glasses. If you had to imagine a Russian intellectual in exile, the image that would appear in your mind’s eye would be pretty close. The 38-year-old came to Vilnius with his wife in May; before that they lived in Turkey for two months.

Koletsev was considered a “foreign agent” in Russia. Every three months he had to provide the Ministry of Justice with information about his income and account movements. “I’m not coming back,” he says in a cafe in Vilnius Old Town. On February 28, a few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Koletsev and his wife left their hometown of Yekaterinburg in Western Siberia. He is on a wanted list in Russia for spreading allegedly false information about the massacre in Bucha, Ukraine.

Koletsev is editor-in-chief of Republic.ru, an online medium with a dozen employees. Some of his editorial colleagues still live in Russia, but most of them in Germany, France, Montenegro or Israel. Kolezev explains that his business model is unique in Russia: “We have a paywall and are funded solely by our subscribers. That makes us independent.”

The journalist emphasizes that Ukrainian authors are also employed. Even in Vilnius, where most Russians reject Putin’s regime, it is anything but obvious that Russians and Ukrainians get along well. “For some Ukrainians, almost every Russian is an enemy,” Koletsev complains. The Belarusians, on the other hand, are closer to the Russians. Linguistically, but also because they are in a similar situation: “Our countries are ruled by dictators, and somehow we feel guilty about that.”

Officially Lithuania welcomes Russian exiles with open arms: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has set up special programs for journalists to support their work. That is not self-evident: at the beginning of December the Latvian government withdrew the broadcasting license of the Russian-language television channel Doschd. For Koletsev, this is a red signal, even if he finds it understandable against the background of history. “Perhaps the Baltics are not the safest place for us in the long run,” he says. The threat is too close for that.

The “learned impotence” of the Russians

Many Lithuanians actively support Ukraine. Laurynas Katkus has just returned from Kiev; now he is in a rustic Polish restaurant on the outskirts of Vilnius. The 50-year-old is one of the country’s best-known poets, as well as a novelist and translator; he translated works by Friedrich Hölderlin, Gottfried Benn and Walter Benjamin, among others, into Lithuanian.

“We raised money at the Writers’ Union – for the families of murdered authors, but also for the Ukrainian army,” he says. Now they brought a jeep and generators to Kiev. The Ukrainians believed in victory. “Next year in Bakhchisarai,” people said, referring to a well-known place in Crimea.

Katkus is critical of the behavior of some Russians in the Baltic states: “They are opponents of Putin, but also enemies of imperialism? A lot comes with breast milk and is not questioned. The Russians felt like a great nation; in exile they often closed themselves off and showed little interest in their host country. Moreover, the war has shown how impotent the Russian liberals are. “The tricky question is whether that isn’t also learned powerlessness,” says Katkus.

Many Russians said there was no point in protesting anyway. “The Ukrainians, on the other hand, went straight to the front.” Laurynas Katkus wants to return to Kiev soon. For the Lithuanians, the struggle of the Ukrainians is also their own. (aargauerzeitung.ch)