It will take decades to undo the work done on the Russian people by state propaganda, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė told the Atlantic Council, an American think tank.
“It will not be enough to let Alexei Navalny and all other political opponents out of prison. I think the level of intoxication of people’s mind in Russia is very dangerous,” she said in an interview published on Thursday.
“We need another 50 years of different propaganda [...]. or simply telling truth to people, however unpleasant that might look to Russian people, to at least clean the focus and horizon for their understanding,” she said.
Read more: From outpouring of support to hostility – how do Russians see Baltics today?
“When people say, aren’t you interested in good relations with Russia, yes, [we are interested] definitely,” Šimonytė said. “If there were the same set of values, then there would be a big potential for partnership not only for our country but also for all the countries of the region and around the globe.”
According to the Lithuanian prime minister, people in Russia began to look into their history only after 1991, when they found information about Stalinism, Gulags, and other atrocities.
However, it all stopped as the society “tried to navigate this new economy [...] and there was no time for reconciliation with the past”.
In Šimonytė’s view, this was one of the biggest mistakes.
Asked what could be done now, she said that “we are doing what we can, [...] we are supporting free media, we are supporting political opponents, quite many of them live here in the region”.
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