The passengers of the train were heading to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which can only be reached by train crossing Lithuania, and on the podium they encountered images of war and destruction. Twenty-four large photographs depicting bombed-out Ukrainian cities, dead Ukrainian children and bloodied bodies of Ukrainians with shrapnel wounds have been installed here by the Lithuanian railway company LTG, which also supplies its locomotive pulling Russian EU territory. They all carry the same message in Russian, which is repeated through the public announcement system as the train stops: “Today, Putin is killing civilians in Ukraine. Do you support that? “ “People in Russia do not have much access to unbiased information,” said Mantas Dubauskas, a spokesman for LTG. “Maybe we can change the minds of some passengers.” The settlement at Vilnius Central Station is symbolic of a Baltic nation that does not seem so neglected by the war in another former Soviet state as daring to tell the world that it must finally stand up to Russia. A poster with the damage caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine at Vilnius Central Station. The PA system asks the Russians on their way to Kaliningrad if they support Putin’s actions. Photo: Andrius Sytas / Reuters In the first days after Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory on February 24, concern spread around Lithuania, which has been an independent democracy since 1990 and a member of NATO since 2004. “It brought a lot of historical fears to my country,” said Linas Kojala, director of thinktank at the Center for Eastern European Studies. “I had dozens of messages from friends asking what would happen next. Some asked if they should leave the country, perhaps in Spain or Portugal. You just have to look at a map of the area to feel uncomfortable. “ The southernmost of the EU’s three Baltic states, Lithuania borders Kaliningrad to the west and Belarus to the east – a military corridor between the enclave and the host state would cut off the Baltic states from the rest of Europe. But within days of the start of the Russian invasion, stress in the Baltic had turned into determination. In central Vilnius, Ukrainian flags outnumber Lithuanian flags, with yellow and blue clad around government buildings, sprayed on old city walls or wrapped in scarves around shop mannequins. On 1 April, Lithuania became the first EU country to announce that it had abandoned Russian gas, instead meeting its energy requirements through a floating LNG terminal in the port city of Klaipėda. Lithuanian champion swimmer Rūta Meilutytė takes a dip in the lake painted in blood red in front of the Russian Embassy in Vilnius. Photo: Andrius Repsys / AP It was also one of the first EU countries to downgrade its diplomatic ties with the Kremlin following reports of war crimes by Bucha, withdrawing its own top diplomat from Moscow and urging the Russian ambassador to leave the Lithuanian capital. The message was underlined visually by an art show that threw just one stone from the Russian Federation’s diplomatic base in Vilnius: last Wednesday morning, Lithuanian Olympian Rūta Meilutytė swam in a nearby red-painted lake. “We wanted to remind people how important it is to keep looking at what Russian aggression is doing,” said Berta Tilmantaite, a journalist and artist who helped organize the protest. “I can understand why people look elsewhere or get tired of the news. “But in Lithuania we know Russia and we are not afraid right now,” Tilmantaite told the Observer. “We feel very determined.” Anyone who wants to know what drives Lithuania’s prominence in this juncture of history does not need to look far beyond the Vilnius Museum of Professions and Freedoms. Located at the former KGB headquarters across from Lukiškės Square, the museum tells the story of how the Soviet Union delivered an ultimatum to Lithuania in June 1940 to allow Red Army troops to cross its border. Tensions between Moscow and Vilnius escalated after the Soviet foreign minister accused Lithuania of torturing and killing three of its soldiers. With more Russian troops concentrated on its borders than its own, the Lithuanian government has handed over the country to a puppet regime. Most of the museum’s exhibition space is given to those partisans who nevertheless continued to fight for independence. Migle Kriksciunaite, 25, was visiting the museum in the afternoon sun with her parents. Were there lessons that the rest of Europe could learn from the history of Lithuania? “The lesson our history teaches us is very simple,” he said. “Fight for your freedom. It is so simple”.
