Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said he did not have any contact with KGB officials after information that there was a KGB case related to him was shared on social media on Thursday.
Nausėda’s comment came in response to questions from Andrius Tapinas, a public figure in Lithuania, about the president’s file in the Special Archives and his departure for an internship in Germany.
“I studied at the University of Mannheim in Germany in 1990-1992. I only talked to the staff of the Lithuanian Education Ministry and representatives of the University of Mannheim. I did not talk to KGB officers about the internship in Germany or any other issues,” Nausėda posted on Facebook.
The president also provided a questionnaire from the then Interior Ministry, which shows that the inquiry about his trip to Germany was made by the then Education Ministry.
According to the president, the file stored with the KGB documents contains two sheets of paper “with institutional visas that I can leave for my internship in Germany”.
“The questionnaire was filled in without my participation, and the request was sent by the Education Ministry, which is what is written on the sheet of paper,” Nausėda wrote.
The questionnaire shows that the permission to leave was approved by various institutions, including the KGB. The document dates to January 15, 1990.
Kęstutis Remeika, Deputy Director of the Lithuanian Special Archive, said that there is indeed a card in the KGB archive dedicated to Nausėda. However, there is no information on whether there is also a case for him.
Anyone travelling abroad used to go to the visa registration department at the Interior Ministry, write an application form, and one copy was sent to the KGB, Remeika said.
“There were tens of thousands of cards like that, and one of them was kept for the president,” he explained.
According to Remeika, it is not clear whether the archive contains a file and not just a card for Nausėda because the archive did not carry out a search.
The President’s Office confirmed last week that Nausėda joined the Soviet Communist Party in May 1988. After this fact became public, the president called it a youthful mistake and said the disclosure of this fact had to do with political competition and the next year’s presidential elections.
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Nausėda also received questions about his service in the Soviet army. He said he was on the military records but did not serve in the army because he was declared unfit for military service due to a severe internal organ injury he suffered as a child.
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