News

On 23 April, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the chargé d'affaires of the Russian Federation's Embassy and handed him a note of strong protest over the demolition of a memorial stone for Lithuanian exiles in Russia's city of Tomsk on 19 April. The memorial stone, created by the sculptor Tadas Gutauskas, was erected with Lithuanian state funds in 2016 in  the Remembrance Square for victims of political repression in Tomsk.

The Ministry stresses that this is not the first time that monuments honoring  the victims of the Stalinist regime have been demolished  in Russia. Lithuania sees this as an attempt to distort historical truth and demean the memory of the victims of the Soviet totalitarian regime. The note demanded that Russia explain the reasons for the deplorable event and take immediate measures to restore the memorial.

Along with the memorial stone for Lithuanian exiles, other signs commemorating Estonian, Kalmuk, Latvian, and Polish deportees were also removed from the square, as well as the "Stone of Sorrow" dedicated to the victims of Russian Bolshevik terror. The heads of the embassies of Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Lithuania in Moscow sent a joint protest letter to the Russian Federation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 22 April. The letter states, among other things, that such actions are to be seen as a manifestation of the hypocrisy of the Russian authorities and reminds that the inhabitants of the Baltic states and Poland suffered from two totalitarian regimes, the Nazis and the Soviets. Diplomats point out that in order for past crimes not to happen again, it is necessary to preserve the memory of the victims of both regimes.