Lithuania’s National Security Commission is considering banning some Lithuanian citizens from traveling to Russia and Belarus for security reasons.
The plan is to impose restrictions on civil servants, soldiers and officials, but also on anyone who has clearance to work with classified information, according to Vilmantas Vitkauskas, head of the National Crisis Management Centre.
“The second question of the National Security Commission was to consider the possibility of restricting the travel of civil servants, officials and soldiers to Russia and Belarus because of the emerging and continuing risks that we see our citizens face both in the border crossing procedures and afterwards during their stay in those countries,” Vitkauskas told a press conference after the commission’s meeting on Wednesday.
“We had a fairly detailed and open discussion and decided to improve our legal framework and not to limit it to the officials, civil servants and soldiers who have the right to work with classified information, but to look a little bit more broadly,” he said.
According to Vitkauskas, these are “quite attractive targets for intelligence services”.
Citing the data available to him, he said that about 20,000 people in Lithuania have permits to work with classified or top secret information, of whom only dozens travel to Belarus or Russia.
Such a ban would be implemented by imposing sanctions on those who do not comply, Vitkauskas said.
An amendment to the Law on State Secrets is being considered, introducing the possibility of withdrawing a person’s authorisation to work with classified information if he or she has travelled to Russia or Belarus without obtaining permission from the head of the institution.
“This would be a withdrawal of the authorisation and an automatic loss of employment,” Vitkauskas explained.
The National Security Commission is due to discuss the refined draft in September.
According to Vitkauskas, 255,000 residents of Lithuania have travelled to Belarus this year, compared to 430,000 last year.
The State Security Department has repeatedly advised Lithuanians to avoid travelling to both Belarus and Russia, citing the increase in recruitment cases in recent years.
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