Nearly a quarter of a million Lithuanians have travelled to Belarus over the first six months of this year, even as Vilnius-Minsk relations remain hostile and the Lithuanian government has advised citizens against going to the country.
“In the first half of the year, 230,000 people left [for Belarus]. On average, about 52,000 Lithuanian citizens travel tor Belarus monthly,” State Border Guard Service (VSAT) chief Rustamas Liubajevas told reporters on Wednesday, adding the number included trips for work.
The border guard chief also said “we have information that Lithuanian citizens are being recruited” by Belarusian agencies. Moreover, “Belarusian citizens traveling to Lithuania are being asked to take photos and record the movement of troops”, Liubajevas added.
In total, he said, around 2 million passengers crossed checkpoints on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border in the first half of this year.
“If we talk specifically about Belarusian citizens, 830 000 citizens arrived. Most of them left,” Liubajevas said.
Poster campaign
Belarus introduced a visa-free regime for Lithuanian, Latvian and Polish citizens in the spring of 2022. Minsk claims that some 170,000 Lithuanians have taken advantage of this option this year.
“If we look into overall statistics, which are also available on the website of the Belarusian State Border Committee, over 400,000 [Lithuanian citizens] have gone to Belarus since April 2022,” said Liubajevas.
Deputy Foreign Minister Mantas Adomėnas has urged Lithuanians not to travel to Belarus.
The authorities are even planning to install posters at the border saying: “Don’t risk your safety, don’t go to Belarus, you may never come back.”
On Wednesday, the State Security Department (VSD), Lithuania’s main intelligence agency, also warned of the risks of travelling to Belarus. In a Facebook post, the VSD alleges that Belarusian intelligence services are checking travellers’ computers, phones, social media accounts, using “blackmail and psychological pressure” to get them to cooperate with Belarusian intelligence.
When asked about concrete cases of recruitment, Adomėnas refused to elaborate, only saying that Minsk “continues to pursue the objective of having tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Belarus”.
He also refrained from commenting further on the process. “As the popular American saying goes, if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you,” Adomėnas joked.
Trips for shopping and visiting friends
Although the Lithuanian government has issued a recommendation for people not to travel to Belarus, there have been also cases of some statutory officers traveling to Belarus. However, such cases are few, Liubajevas said.
“We are holding preventive conversations with our officers, but the number of these cases has gone down and is almost non-existent since the escalation of the situation and the appearance of Wagner mercenaries in Belarus,” the border guard chief said.
He said he had no data on why Lithuanian citizen travel to Belarus, but added that “about 60 percent of all citizens travel under the Belarusian visa-free scheme”.
“Most of the time our citizens declare that they are going to visit friends, to see certain places in Belarus, and some of them say they are going for shopping,” he said, adding that people go to cheaper salt or buckwheat and also bring back other products and goods.
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