Photo by Vadim Sadovski on Unsplash
When it comes to the not-so-secret fears of intelligence officers in Lithuania one country absolutely dominates their worried minds: Russia.
A new threat report from Lithuanian intelligence and military services, published today, mentions “Russia” 324 times in 66 pages, with alarming warnings about Russian activity in the country from historical propaganda to cyber operations, to an “intense” spying campaign. “China,” by comparison, surfaces 22 times.
“The main threat to Lithuania’s national security is Russia’s foreign and security policies driven by the Kremlin’s desire to ensure the regime’s stability and demonstrate its indispensability to domestic audience,” the report [PDF] says.
While the paper describes a number of areas of concern, it is particularly concerned with Russian human intelligence espionage operations. It says that Lithuanian counter-intelligence efforts have made the nation a hard target for Russian foreign spy services, but Russia has taken advantage of geography to make up for it. Lithuania does not share a border with Russia to the east, but it does neighbor the Kaliningrad Oblast, an island of Russian territory to Lithuania’s west, north of Poland.
Last year Russia announced free, electronic visa for citizens of Lithuania and dozens of other countries to travel to Kaliningrad. And while the move was ostensibly meant to increase tourism, the report says it also presents a “risk to national security.”
“They systematically search for foreigners able to provide intelligence on foreign countries or perform other tasks,” the report says. “The Federal Security Service (FSB) and the GRU [Russia’s military intelligence agency] develop and use this foreign intelligence method known as intelligence from the territory.
“In Russia the FSB and the GRU operate aggressively, and particularly often use compromising information and blackmail in their recruitment operations. NATO security services identified many cases where Russian intelligence services used aggressive measures when establishing contacts with foreigners,” the report says.
The report mentions specific individual cases in which Russia successfully recruited Lithuanians with access to information on Lithuania’s military, included two purported Russian recruiters who were part of a spy-swap with Russia last year. It also accuses a Russian intelligence services of being behind the funding of a number of public events in Lithuania designed to reshape Russia’s image in the country. There is a concerted effort to cast Russia as “liberator” heroes to Lithuanians during the Second World War, it says. (Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union, then Nazi Germany, then the Soviet Union again over the course of the war — a particularly controversial time in the nation’s history.)
“The Kremlin is also in denial of those historical facts that attest to executions, imprisonments, and deportations perpetrated by the soviet authorities,” it says.
The intelligence report says China, too, conducts espionage operations targeting Lithuanians, some of whom are approached online through career-focused sites like LinkedIn — a method reportedly used by the Chinese against intelligence targets the world over.
The report was published the same day a new American ambassador, Robert Gilchrist, officially assumed his role as head of America’s diplomatic mission there.
“Lithuania is a strong and valuable Ally and friend of the United States. We recognize your contributions to global security; your expertise at combating disinformation; and your commitment to democracy, rule of law, and human rights,” Gilchrist said, according to the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius. “Our countries have both benefited from this friendship and, I have no doubt, will continue to do so.”
Primary Source: National Threat Assessment 2020 (PDF)
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