Documents found during searches at the Wagner headquarters in Saint Petersburg show that the private military group was linked to an information attack against Lithuania, the State Security Department (VSD) said on Wednesday.
“During the searches carried out by Russian law enforcement over the weekend at the office of this private military company following the mutiny of its owner and manager Yevgeny Prigozhin, several of his passports issued under a different name were found,” the intelligence agency posted on Facebook. “Among the documents was a passport issued to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s double, which was used in an information attack against Lithuania in 2020.”
According to the annual report by the VSD and Lithuanian military intelligence, a Hawker 800 aircraft belonging to Prigozhin landed in Vilnius Airport in early 2020.
According to Lithuanian intelligence, at the same time, a person holding a Russian passport issued in the name of Yevgeny Prigozhin, with facial features resembling Prigozhin himself, came twice to Lithuania on a regular flight, but it was not the oligarch.
The date of birth on the passport held by Prigozhin’s double was the same as that of the oligarch himself June 1, 1961.
“According to Lithuanian intelligence, the document found at the Wagner headquarters confirms that this information attack was carried out by entities under Prigozhin’s control, possibly in cooperation with the Russian regime’s secret services,” the VSD said.
The intelligence agency says it is monitoring and assessing potential developments in the security situation in the region related to the possible relocation of Prigozhin and Wagner mercenaries to neighbouring Belarus.
Prigozhin’s double first came to Vilnius from Russia on a scheduled flight on February 13, 2020. From the airport, he went to the building of the Ministry of Transport and Communication, took a photo and then returned to the airport to catch a scheduled flight back to Russia, spending only five and a half hours in Lithuania, according to the VSD.
Further reading
On February 26, 2020, Prigozhin’s double arrived in Lithuania for the second time on a scheduled flight. He took a photo in front of the parliament, Seimas, the Lithuanian National Museum and the Palace of the Grand Dukes, and then left for Belarus by train on the following day, even though he had a plane ticket for the same day’s flight.
The Russian tabloid news portal sobesednik.ru published untrue claims that on February 10, 2020, Prigozhin arrived in Lithuania on a Hawker 800 plane and discussed information technology projects in Lithuania with a high-ranking representative of the Ministry of Communication.
A second sobesednik.ru article reported that Prigozhin once again came to Vilnius and visited the Seimas because he could travel in the EU despite sanctions. To reinforce the impression, the articles were illustrated with photographs of Prigozhin’s double in front of Lithuanian state institutions.
Other Russian media also reported on Prigozhin’s alleged visits to Vilnius, claiming he met with influential civil servants, business companies. According to one story, an assistant to the chairman of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defence was outraged by Prigozhin’s unhindered travel to Lithuania.
“Despite the efforts and resources of the perpetrators, the information attack was not successful, the false information was published only by small Russian tabloids, and it did not resonate either in Lithuania or in other NATO and EU countries,” the VSD said.
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