The Lithuanian parliament Seimas on Thursday banned the country’s professional troops from travelling to unfriendly countries.
The legal changes were initiated by the Defence Ministry, and 78 MPs voted in favour of them, with no votes against and no abstentions.
The bill stipulates that the government will approve a list of countries or territories troops would be banned from travelling to for off-duty purposes.
In early December, the Defence Ministry published an initial list of such countries, including Russia and its occupied Crimea, Belarus, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, the Transnistria region of Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the Abkhazian and South Ossetian regions of Georgia.
Similarly, professional troops will not be allowed to travel to foreign countries or territories if the Foreign Ministry advises citizens against travelling to these countries or tells them to leave immediately.
The draft resolution also proposed defining cases and establishing the procedure under which professional troops would be allowed to travel to foreign countries or territories included in the above-mentioned list.
The Defence Ministry says such a ban has to do with national security interests.
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