His latest measure will not bring down the Russian economy or stop the bombings in Ukraine. But on his scale, Remigijus Simasius managed to embarrass the Russians. The mayor of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, has just renamed the address of the Russian embassy in his city: “Street of Ukrainian heroes”. In mid-March, the new plates have just been installed: a black one in Lithuanian, a blue one in Ukrainian. “From now on, the employees of the embassy will all have to salute the courage of the people of Ukraine on their business card”, justified the liberal city councilor.
In front of the Russian embassy, these days, three Lithuanian police vans stand guard to avoid any spillover from the anti-war demonstrations. This does not prevent the police from displaying Ukrainian flags on their vehicles. “We prefer to defend these colors than those of the invader”, loose an agent encased in his black cap, pointing to the walls of the Russian embassy.
“We can be next on the Kremlin’s list”
Like its mischievous mayor, Vilnius has been resisting in its own way since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. First, by dressing up, like its police, in blue and yellow: in Lithuania, it is difficult to find a restaurant, a museum or even an optician without a Ukrainian flag. “For fifty years we were occupied by the Soviet Union, poses political scientist Marius Laurinavicius. We therefore understand very well that the Russians are not waging a war against Ukraine, but against the whole of the West, and that we can be next on the Kremlin’s list. Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, there is huge popular support here for Ukraine.”
Lithuania has also had its share of invasions launched from Moscow. At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet army annexed the country, with its procession of deaths, deportations and deprivations. The KGB, whose interrogation rooms in Vilnius were kept intact and open to the public, brought terror to what was then a Soviet province. During this dark period, more than 200,000 Lithuanians were imprisoned, 132,000 deported, mostly to Siberia, and 60,000 murdered. A few months after the fall of the Berlin Wall on March 11, 1990, Lithuania regained its sovereignty.
This year, the celebrations of this “found independence” necessarily carry a particular flavor. During ceremonies in front of the Seimas, the national parliament, a giant Ukrainian flag was unfurled alongside the Lithuanian. Despite temperatures of -5°C, several thousand of them took to the streets of Vilnius, in support of their “Ukrainian brothers”.
“I was a child when we left the USSR, my memories of this period remain vague, but this Russian aggression brings back a trauma in every Lithuanian, says Agné, a 37-year-old nurse, while readjusting the Ukrainian flag on the shoulders of his son during a charity concert. Our parents and our grandparents told us about the humiliation of the Soviet occupation, but also about the resistance. In Ukraine, it’s all of our war.”
The national spirit remains marked by the “freedom fighters”, those Lithuanians who led the longest guerrilla warfare in modern Europe against the Red Army, at the start of the occupation (from 1944 to 1953). They are also nicknamed “brothers of the forest”, for their ability to establish underground bases in the woods. “Our history makes us less naive than Westerners in the face of the danger of authoritarian regimes, believes a Lithuanian diplomat. We were the first to leave the Soviet Union, then to join the European Union and NATO. We remain a nation of freedom fighters.” Wedged between the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in the west and Belarus in the east, Lithuania placed itself in a state of emergency on 24 February, with tighter police checks and the arrival on site of hundreds of NATO soldiers.
China, an unprecedented economic threat
Since November, Vilnius has been facing another authoritarian giant: Xi Jinping’s China. The Lithuanian government has accepted the installation on its territory of a representative of Taiwan, and not of the city of Taipei, as is customary in Western capitals. For Beijing, using the word “Taiwan” means recognizing the independence of a territory it considers its own. “Lithuania is the first European country to authorize this use of the name Taiwan, indicates the head of the Taiwanese representation, Eric Huang, from his office on the top floor of a huge glass tower in Vilnius. a very significant recognition of our status as a free country, our culture and our democratic model.”
Since coming to power in 2020, the center-right government has multiplied actions of defiance towards China. Huawei was denied the installation of the 5G network, Chinese investments in the country’s largest port were blocked and Vilnius withdrew from the European dialogue group with Beijing. Worried about depending on an authoritarian regime, the Lithuanian government had calculated that the economic consequences would be limited: only 1% of its exports went to China.
But the scale of the Chinese response has stunned the entire country. Beijing has implemented a total embargo on Lithuanian products, both import and export, and also blocks any goods with a component coming from Lithuania. Three out of four Lithuanian companies are affected by the Chinese boycott. “These waves of sanctions are outrageous, emphasizes Eric Huang. China has a long arm, it wants to submit Lithuania and control European companies. Without a strong reaction, China will decide alone how international trade operates.” In 2020, Beijing took the same kind of sanctions against Australia, after Canberra demanded a thorough investigation into the origins of Covid-19.
If the United States offers unfailing support to Vilnius, the European Union is divided and dithers, for fear of angering a huge trading partner. “Lithuania knows the Russian threat by heart, which allows us to better understand the Chinese threat, explains Marius Laurinavicius. The West gives priority to trade and thinks it can find “win-win” agreements, but these regimes do not think Never in these terms! Europeans are constantly asking for more cooperation, without understanding that they are taking the path of dependence.” With the war in Ukraine, these painful questions explode in the face of the West. The answers will no doubt take a long time to find, but in northern Europe a small country has already opened up a breach.