A report by LRT has prompted changes to the Citizenship Law so that Russian nationals working for the Kremlin could not get Lithuanian passports. However, the law may have more loopholes.
A recent report by the LRT Investigation Team revealed that thousands of Russian nationals have been granted Lithuanian citizenship because they are descendants of Lithuanian political exiles deported to Russia by Stalin. Some of them serve in the Russian army or are employed by government-controlled strategic companies. Lithuania’s laws, it turns out, have no safeguards against giving citizenship to foreigners who may pose national security threats.
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The President’s Office says Lithuania has overlooked loopholes in its citizenship law.
“Were there grounds for raising these issues before? Maybe when the issue of sanctions evasion was raised,” says Kęstutis Budrys, the president’s senior security adviser. “The fact that there are gaps in terms of national security has not been so clearly documented, and that should be acknowledged.”
The Interior Ministry admits that there is no way to reject applications from people who may be working for the Russian government.
However, it says that institutions could and should have prevented giving citizenship to Russian soldiers.
“If a person serves in the army of another country and does not have the permission of the Lithuanian government, that person loses his or her Lithuanian citizenship even when that’s the only citizenship he or she has,” says Deputy Interior Minister Agneta Ladek.
After the LRT Investigation, the ministry quickly drafted amendments to the Citizenship Law, proposing additional tools to screen applicants.
However, the amendments have been criticised by the President’s Office, saying the safeguards are not good enough.
“If you do a job for which Russia requires loyalty, and if the Russian state considers you to be a loyalist, then we should in principle question how that person can be loyal to the Republic of Lithuania,” says Budrys.
The State Security Department (VSD), Lithuania’s main intelligence agency, has also criticised the amendments. According to the VSD, people who pose a threat to security should be banned from becoming Lithuanian citizens, but the new proposals do not address this.
The Ministry of the Interior disagrees.
“I would like to stress that before the amendments, it was practically impossible to deny citizenship to a person [who meets the criteria] under the Citizenship Law. It doesn’t matter what the citizen has done,” notes Deputy Minister Ladek. “And with this proposal, we are giving tools for the state to defend itself.”
However, the proposed law also worries people who already have dual Lithuanian-Russian citizenship. Andrei, whose grandfather was a Lithuanian exile, has been living in the country since 2021.
“Now, I am afraid that my citizenship may be replaced by a residence permit. With voting rights but a residence permit that can be revoked at any time,” says Andrei.
Another loophole
There is another loophole in the current Citizenship Law that allows people to exploit the rules. It has been used by Lithuania’s richest man, Avia Solutions Group board chairman Gediminas Žiemelis.
As a descendant of political exiles, albeit born in Vilnius, the businessman has acquired Turkish citizenship while retaining his Lithuanian passport, something that most Lithuanians cannot do. While the Lithuanian constitution bans dual citizenship, the law provides for an exception for the descendants of exiles.
Žiemelis has confirmed these facts to LRT: he acquired the Turkish passport in order to buy a company and is planning to apply for two more nationalities. Moreover, he has been a tax resident of the United Arab Emirates for a number of years.
The authorities promise that with the new amendments, the “Žiemelis loophole” will be closed. After taking into account all the comments, the changes are expected to be approved by the parliament in the autumn session.
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