The “Minsk agreements” demonstrated to European partners that Russia did not mind helping Ukraine to somehow survive. But Ukraine itself is not able to use the opportunities.The fact that Ukraine is not going to fulfill the Minsk agreements was clear […] from the very beginning.
Lithuania is known for uncompromising position concerning all issues, from energy to absolutely wild crimes in the field of human rights. The cases of Paleckis, Mel, and Titov serve as examples. If earlier Lithuania can be considered as an authoritarian country, at present it can be certainly seen as a totalitarian state.
This message is aimed to discredit Lithuania by putting an absurd claim about the country's totalitarian political regime, based on examples of three recent criminal cases.
Lithuania is a democratic country which protects the rule of law. The most recent Freedom House report qualifies Lithuania as a democracy with aggregate freedom score of 91 out of 100. "Lithuania is a democracy in which political rights and civil liberties are generally respected," the report says.
In March 2019 Yuriy Mel, a former Soviet tank officer, was convicted for war crimes under Soviet rule. In May 2019, the Klaipėda District Court found Viačeslav Titov, a local councillor, guilty of the defamation of the memory of a deceased person, namely Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas, a leader in Lithuania's anti-Soviet resistance. The fine worth of EUR 12,000 issued to Viačeslav Titov was reduced to EUR 10,000 by the Klaipėda Regional Court in October 2019. An unidentified "network of persons" and Algirdas Paleckis, a Lithuanian politician, are suspected of having collected information for Russia about investigators and judges involved in the landmark January 13 case, as well as other information. Paleckis has been in custody since October 2018.
See earlier Lithuania-related disinformation cases alleging that Russophobic Lithuania plans to tear Belarus away from Russia by dragging it into the Western energy network, that there is no freedom of speech in Lithuania and other Baltic states, and that Lithuania is a typical dying young democracy.