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On 27 May, on the eve of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, Minister Linas Linkevičius invited his fellow ministers to an informal business dinner with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the founder of the movement Open Russia.

Minister Linkevičius underlined that the meeting was Lithuania’s direct input into the support that the European Union Foreign Affairs Council gives to strengthening of and engagement with Russian civil society.

“In Lithuania, we believe in the prospects of a free, democratic and European Russia therefore we held the fifth already Vilnius Russia Forum in Lithuania which was a platform for open discussions about the future of Russia. Today’s debate is important because the EU’s investment in this direction is still inadequate,” Linas Linkevičius said. He noted that Khodorkovsky urged to comply with the rule of law vis-à-vis the Kremlin and not to turn away from Russian civil society.

The debate focused on the situation in Russia after the President was re-elected there, on the state of its civil society, Kremlin’s aggressive foreign policy, on-going military aggression in its neighbourhood, and attempts to divide and destabilise societies of the USA and EU member states.

This was the second debate of the kind, organised by the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs. A business breakfast was held with Vladimir Kara-Murza in the margins of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in October 2017.