In left-wing discussions, analysis of the invasion of Ukraine has been preoccupied with the themes of US imperialism and the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Though there are valid critiques to be made about NATO and US interventions, including their involvement in Ukraine, this war represents yet another example of the lasting propensity among critical geopolitical analysts to remain ensnared within the tunnel visions of Western-centrism. The lion’s share of writing today all too easily construes the US as the only relevant actor in global affairs. According to this schema — endorsed by both Realist and Marxist critics of so-called ‘Natopolitanism’ — states can only act in response to American aggression or the whims of its business elites. They rarely do so for reasons of their own. Applied to the current conjuncture, this logic resembles what Roman Rosdolsky once described as ‘national nihilism’. This nihilism not only trivialises Russia’s capacity for autonomous geopolitical action but also denies Ukraine’s agency. In the former case, there is a refusal to acknowledge that Russian actions are not derived from the ‘eternal laws’ of geopolitics as interpreted by (mostly American) international relations scholars, but instead shaped by its own internal political dynamics — let alone see how the consequences of those actions run in sharp contrast to Western interests today. As for Ukraine’s role, a familiar reduction of the war to the inter-imperialist conflict between the US and its allies, on the one hand, and the always-already reacting Russia, on the other, has been invoked repeatedly to construe the invaded country as a pawn in the great power play. The political ramification of this one-sided analysis, as Yuliya Yurchenko highlights, was to callously recognise Russia’s right to ‘defend its interests’ while simultaneously ‘denying the right of Ukrainians to defend their lives or assert their national self-determination’. When it came to scrutinising the prologues, responses, and wider resonances of 24 February, the entire of Eastern Europe was to be relegated to the margins of attention.
My intention, here, is not to provide another interpretation of the ongoing war. Instead, this essay chronicles the repercussions that the war has had on another country bordering Russia, namely Lithuania. Not only is this a country whose conservative-liberal coalition government stands out as one of the most fervent European advocates for an unequivocal defeat of Russia in Ukraine. Lithuania also hosted the annual NATO summit in July 2023, where discussions revolved around the establishment of the NATO-Ukraine Council, the launch of a multi-year assistance program for the Ukrainian military, and the reaffirmation of Ukraine’s future NATO membership, contingent upon meeting specific criteria. While these themes have been at the centre of international media coverage, the impact of the war on the everyday lives of those residing in Lithuania — both citizens and temporary residents — has received little scrutiny. I will thus begin this article by addressing the economic challenges instigated by Vladimir Putin’s military adventurism, a particular burden on workers and the poor. This is followed by documenting the unwavering determination of the Lithuanian government and its people to create a hospitable environment for Ukrainian refugees. Subsequently, this piece delves into the trials and tribulations faced by Ukrainian arrivals in Lithuania, drawing comparisons with the experiences of Belarusian and Russian nationals who have also sought refuge in the country. The latter are currently viewed as a potential ‘fifth column’, a disquieting epithet they share with asylum seekers from the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. I conclude by surveying the responses of the Left to the multifaceted crises presently engulfing the Eastern European region in general, and Lithuania in particular.
Spiralling inflation and the cost-of-living crisis
Away from the frontlines and Ukrainian cities, the toll exacted by the war falls on the working classes and the poor. These segments of the population find themselves increasingly saddled with surging energy prices and the impact of inflation, which steadily erodes incomes and savings. Countries bordering Ukraine have been particularly hard-hit and now face mounting economic instability. Lithuania had already witnessed the spectre of price hikes before the war’s flames were kindled, when the inflation rate climbed to 3.5% in May 2021. However, with the invasion, inflation rose to near-precipitous levels, approaching 14% in February 2022, only to embark on another ascent to around 22% as the curtain fell on the annus horribilis that was 2022. The surge in inflation rates can be partly attributed to the country’s heavy reliance on food and fuel imports. Before the escalation, trade with Russia constituted a substantial portion of Lithuania’s economy, accounting for 11% of its exports and 12% of imports (including a whopping 37% of its natural gas imports). As the prices of natural resources shot up in response to dwindling supplies, Lithuania and its Baltic neighbours found themselves grappling with escalating energy costs. This was exacerbated by the Baltic states’ strong moves to curtail imports from Russia. Consequently, electricity bills peaked during summer 2022, coinciding with the global rise in natural gas prices. Nicholas Larsen observes that by May 2022 the hourly fluctuations in electricity prices in the Baltic states, as reported by Latvia’s state-owned electric utility company Latvenergo JSC, ranged from €6.63 per megawatt-hour (/MWh) to a staggering €500.50/MWh. Subsequently, prices in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania surged even further, at times reaching as high as €4,000/MWh. This cauchemar led Latvia’s central bank governor Mārtiņš Kazāks to label the Baltic states the ‘canary in the coal mine’.
A parallel factor contributing to the resurgent inflation that now invokes memories of the early 1990s ‘transitional recession’ lies in the reality that Lithuanians earn considerably less than their European counterparts. A substantial portion of their income is thus allocated to necessities like energy and food, which have seen the most significant price hikes. Spending on heating, energy, and solid fuels in Lithuania represents a considerably higher proportion of income compared to the rest of the Eurozone, thereby contributing to a two-percentage-point disparity in local inflation. Lithuania, along with Estonia and Latvia, also relies on spot prices rather than the more conventional long-term fixed contracts in energy agreements. It should be added that over the past decade, the country has recorded relatively robust wage growth, with wages nearly tripling during that period, compared to the modest 26% increase in the EU. While wages did grow faster than productivity over the said period, and part of the inflation has to do with prices catching up with wages, this change does no more than compensate for decades of the inverse phenomenon — that is, the long years when worker remuneration significantly trailed behind productivity growth. Lastly, property-price inflation is the final key factor contributing to the overall surge. It is driven by the minimal taxation on real estate, ranging from 0.5% to 3% of its value. The real-estate tax has a non-taxable value of €150,000, meaning that the lowest tax rate of 0.5% is applied only to that part of the property that exceeds the threshold. Even much higher-valued property (for example worth €650,000) is taxed at incredibly low rates. The property tax applied in this instance would stand at €3,500 or 0.54% of the property’s value. In narrating the economic doldrums, the representatives of Lithuania’s commercial and central banks are eager to highlight robust wage growth, framing it as a buffer against recent drops in purchasing power. In the words of the central bank’s governor, Gedminas Šimkus, ‘living standards have jumped dramatically since the country joined the euro in 2015, while consumer prices have only risen by about 40% during that time’. Meanwhile, for Greta Ilekytė, an economist at Swedbank, it is the Lithuanians’ memories of forced occupation by the Soviet Union that render them ‘more tolerant’ towards the economic consequences of the Kremlin’s brutality in Ukraine. Judging by these assessments, the current price spiral ought not to be viewed as ever so extraordinary — after all the country experienced much worse inflation in the 1990s, registering triple-digit rates. Faced with deteriorating living standards, many Lithuanians, however, subscribe to less sanguine interpretations. For them, the economic recession that Lithuania entered into in Q1 of 2023 means financial hardships, surging poverty rates, and rising social exclusion — disquietudes that they experience first-hand.
Thus far workers have shouldered the heaviest burden. Although Lithuania recorded one of the highest increases in average hourly wages across the EU in 2022 (+13.4%), its headline inflation rate reached 18.9%. As a result, many have been struggling to put food on the table (with food inflation reaching 25.9% that year), heat their homes (housing and utilities inflation amounted to 47.8%) or even afford transport to their workplace (transport inflation was 22.2%). Given the limited presence of trade unions in Lithuania (7% of the workforce was unionised in 2022), and even scarcer access to collective agreements and meaningful social dialogue with employers, it comes as no surprise that nearly three-quarters of Lithuanian workers feel that their labour is undervalued and deserves higher compensation. Such attitudes are most widespread among the casualised and lowest-paid sections of the working class, whose ability to make ends meet has deteriorated markedly. Consider that the real value of the statutory minimum wage in Lithuania fell 6.7% year-on-year in Q2 2022, a development unseen during this century. More generally, it has been estimated that over 2021-22 absolute monetary poverty increased by 18.7% across the Baltic states, with close to half of all Lithuanians now considered to be at risk of failing to attain even the minimum standards of decent living, Over the same period, Lithuania’s energy poverty rate (calculated by measuring the share of the population that spends more than 30% of their budget on energy) has jumped by 34%, indicating a high vulnerability of nearly half the country’s population to changes in energy prices. Every second Lithuanian was expected to spend over 30% of their budget on energy in winter 2022–23.
It is worth considering this quandary against the backdrop of challenges that many (especially young) people face when it comes to the affordability of housing. Since the start of the war, landlords have flooded the rental market with properties, on account of the influx of Ukrainian refugees, but in so doing they also raised the already steep rents. From spring to summer 2022, rental prices leapt by as much as 20% and in some cases more than that. For instance, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the capital Vilnius in August 2021 was €630, while by August 2022 this figure had risen to €800. Over the same twelve-month period, the monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in the second-largest city, Kaunas, rose by €70, while in Klaipėda (the third-largest city) it soared by €160. Eurostat data show that from 2010 to 2022 rents in Lithuania climbed by 139%, the second-highest increase in the EU after Estonia (which saw a 214% increase). Young people ever more face the choice of either returning to live with their parents or relatives or emigrating to Western Europe. While 15- to 25-year-olds make up only 20% of Lithuania’s population — a testament to the long-ignored austerity-induced demographic crisis — they make up no less than 47% of emigrants. At the time of writing, the country is losing 1.5% of its population annually, and its regions face the fastest outward migration in the EU among young and skilled workers. The United Nations’s verdict on Lithuania’s vanishing act is just as ominous; the UN projects the population to decline by 22.1% between 2020 and 2050.
The reception of Ukrainian refugees
At first sight, the deteriorating economic situation appeared unable to affect the collective disposition of Lithuania’s conservative-liberal government and the wider population regarding Ukrainians who fled the ravages of war. In the initial stages of the assault, Ukrainian flags and colourful war-inspired murals seemed to sprout in every neighbourhood. While anti-war protests became a regular occurrence, cafés and bars — seldom venues for political discourse in Lithuania — displayed banners with unequivocal messages, directing the Russian warship to seek its path elsewhere. High above, Vilnius’s skyline bore a bold, oversized banner proclaiming, ‘Putin, the Hague is waiting for you’.
A grotesque form of diplomacy was displayed in March 2022 when Lithuania's government cancelled a shipment of 440,000 coronavirus vaccines to Bangladesh as punishment for that country’s failure to condemn Putin’s action.
The Lithuanian government, composed of the conservative Homeland
Union — Lithuanian Christian Democrats (Tėvynės sąjunga — Lietuvos krikščionys demokratai) party and two junior centre-right liberal partners, Liberal Movement (Liberalų sąjūdis) and Freedom Party (Laisvės Partija), emerged as one of the most proactive forces in condemning the invasion on the European and international stage. The condemnation did not only stem from the conviction that anything short of Russia’s conclusive defeat might raise the ominous spectre of potential Baltic incursions — an assertion, we should stress, ceaselessly amplified by the Kremlin’s propaganda apparatus. It was also a response to genteel Western Europe’s propensity for appeasement with, and the Global South’s seeming indifference towards, the ominous portents cast by Putin’s regime. In that sense, the invasion amounted to a vindication for centre-right forces that now recognised an opportunity to take the role of leadership in the EU (together with the Polish, Latvian, and Estonian governments) when responding to Russia’s aggression and even project their rarely heard voice from the pedestal of international politics. In this sense, a grotesque form of diplomacy was displayed in March 2022 when the government cancelled a shipment of 440,000 coronavirus vaccines to Bangladesh as punishment for that country’s failure to condemn Putin’s actions. On the domestic front, the Lithuanian government sought to act as a trendsetter for the EU member states by swiftly closing the country’s airspace to Russian aircraft, imposing robust sanctions, including halting the purchase of petroleum and gas and restricting maritime ports to vessels registered in Russia. After the Bucha massacre, the government expelled the Russian ambassador from Vilnius and withdrew Lithuania’s own ambassador from Moscow, whilst also initiating the process to ensure that Russians found guilty of war crimes would face international courts. Other examples include the unanimously adopted Lithuanian parliament resolution imploring the UN to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine — an endeavour later complemented by another resolution, branding Russia as a ‘terrorist state’. Before the Vilnius Summit, the parliament’s unanimous resolution endorsed Ukraine’s aspirations for NATO membership. The clarion call was resoundingly clear, as it called upon the alliance to extend a formal invitation to Ukraine at its forthcoming meeting in Washington, slated for July 2024.
More curiously — and in sharp contrast to its previous negative stance toward asylum seekers — the government also made painstaking efforts to ease the integration process for arriving Ukrainians. At present, more than 81,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Lithuania since the start of the full-scale invasion. While not all of them stayed, there were over 42,000 Ukrainian war refugees who obtained temporary residence permits in Lithuania one year after the war. The arrivals peaked in March 2022, when an average of 2,000 people were coming to the country daily. Subsequently, this tidal wave dwindled to 500 daily arrivals in April, and the numbers have been receding ever since. The government’s promptness in welcoming ‘as many refugees as necessary’ has been exemplified in numerous initiatives such as granting new arrivals an automatic right to work and receive employment support provided by the Employment Service. Once registered with the Migration Department, and after receiving temporary protection in Lithuania, Ukrainians can obtain social assistance in cash (social allowances, home heating, reimbursement for drinking water and hot water), a one-off resettlement allowance, compensation for part of the housing rent, social services, and burial allowance. They are eligible to apply for social assistance for pupils in pre-primary or general education, including free school meals and support to buy school supplies. In several Lithuanian cities, Ukrainians were also temporarily entitled to free public transport (buses) and benefited from free three-month travel passes on the Lithuanian railway network. The government’s commitment to fostering a hospitable environment for those fleeing the horrors of war found resonance within the Lithuanian populace. As attested by the head of the Department of National Minorities, in May 2023, a substantial 40% of Lithuanians wholeheartedly endorsed the idea of accepting as many Ukrainian refugees as possible and providing them with civilian and military assistance. Approximately two-thirds of Lithuanians demonstrated solidarity with the Ukrainian cause through monetary donations, volunteer work with humanitarian organisations, or opening their homes to refugees. Moreover, hundreds participated in various crowdfunding campaigns aimed at procuring military equipment for the Ukrainian armed forces. The initiatives to create a welcoming environment for Ukrainian war refugees not only deserve commendation but demand our wholehearted support. In an era when global conflicts displace countless innocent people, these endeavours represent a beacon of hope and compassion. However, beneath the surface of this comforting narrative of the government and the public acting in unison, there also linger alarming and often overlooked ordeals. Many Ukrainians who sought asylum in Lithuania became victims of exploitation, discrimination, and profiteering.
Among the European OECD countries, Lithuania stands out for the substantial integration of working-age Ukrainian refugees into the labour market. The participation rate already exceeds 40%. However, a closer examination reveals that the current employment dynamics of Ukrainian workers are shaped, to a considerable extent, by the networks available to them rather than their intrinsic skill sets. A considerable portion of early employment placements has gravitated toward low-skilled occupations, fostering widespread skills mismatches. Part-time employment is also predominant among Ukrainian refugees because of childcare responsibilities. Disproportionately concentrated in precarious sectors such as construction, transportation, and services, Ukrainians become an easily exploitable section of the working class. In some instances, they are forced to work under verbal, i.e. unwritten employment contracts. Many do not realise if they are working officially or not and are often told to leave when they begin to inquire about the informal nature of their employment. Employers are also keen to pay new arrivals a portion of their wages (exceeding the minimum wage) in cash or some other non-transparent manner, often based on a verbal agreement. If the employer then stops paying the ‘envelope wage’, it becomes hard for the worker to prove anything formally. Another practice concerns the issuance of employment contracts riddled with inaccuracies, rendering the exact terms of employment and remuneration elusive. The circumvention of legal stipulations, which mandate clear and comprehensible employment terms, is further exacerbated by the frequent drafting of these contracts in the Lithuanian language. This contravenes the legal imperative that contracts be composed in two copies, one of which must be provided to the employee in a language they understand. Employers routinely instruct Ukrainians to bear the expenses associated with employment paperwork themselves, promising reimbursement that rarely materialises. Amidst these challenges, over the past two years, Ukrainians have become frequent visitors of labour inspectorates across Lithuania. Worse still, they were quick to encounter hostility from Lithuanian co-workers. A troubling revelation emerges from the study of Lithuania’s beauty salons, where Ukrainian specialists often find themselves scapegoated for being ‘overly competitive’ and ‘taking away clients’ from their Lithuanian counterparts. It is reported that Ukrainian workers have borne the brunt of humiliation and endured psychological torment in both workplace and online settings. It should be added that it is not uncommon for war refugees, the majority of whom are women, to become victims of human trafficking. From the early days of the conflict, insidious attempts were made to entice and coerce women into engaging in prostitution and illicit labour upon their arrival at registration centres in Lithuania.
A cursory glance at a survey conducted by the Lithuanian Red Cross reveals that Ukrainian refugees are in dire need of support and assistance in the field of healthcare. Yet only slightly more than 60% are aware of their entitlement to unfettered access to crucial medical services. This knowledge gap is compounded by the finding that a third of respondents who have actively sought medical treatment have voiced concerns about their needs being ignored or only partially met. Among the underlying factors contributing to this systemic lapse in healthcare support are the language barriers, the discourteous demeanour of medical personnel, instances where the continuation of essential treatment is denied, and the insistence on payment for services. A testimony provided by a Ukrainian woman encapsulates the challenges faced by Ukrainians navigating the labyrinth of medical assistance in Lithuania. ‘I won’t hide the fact’, she notes, ‘that the attitude towards Ukrainians in the clinic where I visit is thuggish. If you don’t speak Lithuanian, if you say that you are from Ukraine, or if you don’t understand something, you immediately become second-class. You are a refugee, and nobody cares about you’.
New arrivals have become targets for landlords trying to profiteer from their gullibility in an increasingly tight rental market. The national press features a smorgasbord of stories about landlords refusing to rent apartments to refugees. The unwillingness to rent to foreigners with children or Ukrainians in general is attributed to their short-term residence in the country and the possibility of early contract termination. Thus, finding accommodation even for those who can afford to pay high rental prices and have regular employment becomes a tall order. Another alarming motif emerges when a myriad of challenges faced by those lucky enough to enter the rental market are unearthed. Prominent among these is the issuance of rental contracts drafted exclusively in the Lithuanian language. Such contracts create a formidable barrier when disputes arise between tenants and landlords, rendering it virtually impossible to navigate the points of contention and resolve disagreements. Many Ukrainian refugees have also fallen victim to the pernicious practices ranging from unjustifiable evictions lacking any apparent rationale to forfeited deposits, and the loss of money when paying the landlords for ‘repairs’.
The new ‘fifth column’: Russians and Belarusians
Ukrainians were not the sole contingent from the post-Soviet space to arrive in Lithuania, either immediately before the full-scale invasion or in its aftermath. Data from the Migration Department reveal that as of the outset of 2023, nearly 49,000 Belarusian nationals had established residence in Lithuania. A substantial portion sought refuge from Aleksandr Lukashenko’s authoritarian regime, amid the tumultuous mass protests in 2020. Lithuania is also home to over 15,000 Russian citizens, many of whom are recent arrivals, driven by their desire to escape the country run by Putin and his cronies. In sum, Lithuania currently hosts more than 100,000 immigrants, most of whom are Russian speakers. Nevertheless, in comparison to the reception extended to Ukrainian refugees, the Lithuanian government’s treatment of both Russians and Belarusians is notably different.
On 24 February, 2022, the conservative-liberal coalition introduced the state of emergency that was later extended multiple times. The emergency regime revolved around stepped-up protection of the facilities important for national security and the state border, tightened visa issuance procedures for foreigners, and the suspension of acceptance of tourist visa applications from the citizens of Russia and Belarus. Since that March, new Schengen and national visas were issued to Russian nationals only in exceptional cases and on humanitarian grounds. The following September, the government extended the existing state of emergency on the borders with Russia and Belarus rather than nationwide. This meant that new restrictions on the entry of Russian citizens into the country would be designed. A novel instrument mandated the State Border Guard Service to screen all Russian nationals entering Lithuania. From September 19 the eligibility for entering Lithuania was reserved only to Russian diplomats, dissidents, employees of transport companies, and family members of EU citizens. As a result, even Russian citizens holding shorter-stay Schengen visas issued by other European countries were barred from Lithuania.
When, two days later, Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilisation of military reservists triggered a mass exodus from Russia, the Lithuanian government declared that those fleeing conscription would not be granted asylum. In the words of Lithuania’s conservative Prime Minister, Ingrida Šimonytė, it was ‘not Lithuania’s duty … to save all Russian citizens from mobilisation’. Therefore, she could ‘hardly understand a situation in which we allow people to enter Lithuania on humanitarian grounds just because the war was OK for them when you saw it on TV, sitting on the sofa, but it was no longer OK when your government and your Shoigu called you to join the army and offered you to take part in the war with your own physical body’. These arguments were echoed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis who went on to suggest that Lithuania stands firmly against granting asylum to those ‘who are simply running from responsibility’. ‘Things Russian men can do instead of running away to Europe: protest, disobey, awol, pow, mutiny’. ‘Asylum for 25 million draft dodgers is not an option’, he continued the dithyrambic on Twitter, ‘Russians must liberate Russia’.
Seen from the above angle, the government’s decision to prevent Russian draft dodgers from entering Lithuania rests on two pillars: the belief that all Russians bear collective responsibility for keeping Putin’s regime in power, and the practice of lumping all Russians together only to dub them a ‘security risk’. Both lines of argumentation are tenuous. On the one hand, ascribing collective responsibility for war to all Russians by expecting them to stay and resist the authoritarian regime at home is a practice that European governments would never apply to refugees from countries like Iraq or North Korea. Put differently, refugee status and refugee law bear no relation to one’s experience of active revolt against the government before leaving for a safe country. Nicole Stybnarova emphasises how, by expecting that Russians would boycott the draft rather than flee it, the government officials of Lithuania forget that undemocratic Communist rule in their own country was sustained at least in part due to a longstanding silent tolerance by the majority, however unpleasant the years of occupation might have been. On the other, the government’s readiness to regard all Russians as a ‘security risk’ speaks to its incapacity or, perhaps more accurately, outright refusal, to see the political cleavages, internal conflicts, and tensions within Russian society. It is this denial that precludes drawing distinctions between a country’s population and its government. Indeed, the aversion to appreciating the contradictions between Russian society and the Russian government — previously reflected in the assertions that due to the rigged election processes, Putin is not a legitimate leader of Russia — is of recent vintage. As Nojus Kristė highlights, from the first day of the full-scale invasion, Lithuanian politicians, pundits, and opinion-makers began competing to propose the toughest sanctions not so much against the oligarchic circles enabling Putin’s military adventurism but rather against the entire population of Russia. It did not take long before every Russian was rendered guilty because their nation did not protest, because it did not speak out against the war in the polls, because even liberal oppositionists did not show enthusiasm for all the sanctions against them. A parallel factor fuelling the practice of what Liz Fekete calls ‘ethnic absolutism’ is the unwillingness to acknowledge the double standards informing one’s own reasoning. These are epitomised in the oft-invoked statement that Russian support for the war, ergo, every Russian’s responsibility for it, is reflected in public opinion polls. Oddly enough, those making this assertion do not believe any information coming from Russia, but opinion polls during wartime constitute a peculiar exception. Of course, many observers, including Greg Yudin and Jeremy Morris, have long argued that polling in Russia frames complex questions only very narrowly, suffers from political sabotage, and has very low participation rates. Polling also draws a host of responses where people give an agreeable answer out of fear of repercussions or simply lie. The chorus of collective blame is unperturbed by these findings.
What about Belarusian nationals? Today the official position of the Lithuanian government holds that both Russia and Belarus are equally culpable for the war in Ukraine. In this connection, it should be recalled that in the follow-up to Lukashenko’s crackdown on protests in summer 2020, the Lithuanian government was among the first to hand out thousands of humanitarian visas to Belarusian opposition activists, including former presidential candidate, Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya. Less than two years later, the same people who had to be protected from Lukashenko’s regime are now being punished for the decisions which it has taken. In other words, the discursive tactic of treating as liable everyone in possession of the passport of the country whose regime is complicit in the invasion has been extended to all Belarusians. While Lithuania’s Ministry of Interior has been entertaining the option of introducing an outright entry ban for Belarusian citizens since September 2022, the pace of legislative change was slower in this regard. On 22 November, the government tightened the existing rules for arrivals to Lithuania by preventing ‘hostile’ Russian and Belarusian nationals from entering because they may pose a threat to national security. The procedure of issuing documents that grant foreigners the right to stay or reside in the country was tightened by introducing additional requirements to submit a variety of documents and information, whose purpose was to screen new arrivals and current residents in the country with Russian and Belarusian passports. As part of the new legislation, a special questionnaire was introduced requiring citizens of the two countries to provide not only information about themselves but also about their views on Russia’s war in Ukraine. One of the main questions in the survey asks: ‘Who owns Crimea?’ It is difficult to see what the practical function of the questionnaire is, apart from the arbitrary display of power when requiring Russian and Belarusian citizens to declare their condemnation of the war in order to obtain a visa or to renew their residence permit. Just as unclear is how the requirement to reveal one’s political positions is reconcilable with democratic forms of rule. It may not be a stretch to suggest that an obligation such as this functions to place citizens from both countries in potential danger, for it allows the regimes in Minsk and Moscow to reason that the obtainment of a Lithuanian visa or a residence permit automatically implies disloyalty on the part of the holders — and thus make them susceptible to repression and prosecution at home. However, the questionnaire is only one of the methods used to distinguish between those considered eligible or else underserving to enjoy the ‘privilege’ of living in Lithuania. In late March 2023, a bill appeared in the parliament banning recent Russian arrivals from obtaining Lithuanian citizenship, owning property, applying for visas, or extending their residence permits. The initial proposal sought equal sanctions on Belarusians and Russian nationals, but it was later toned down for Belarusians. While the President later vetoed the bill, insisting on the need to equalise the restrictions for both groups, the parliament then managed to overturn the veto and the contentious provisions banning the path to citizenship were removed for both Russian and Belarusian nationals. Russian nationals were to be barred from owning property or gaining residency permits unless mediated by officials, something that did not apply to Belarusians. Visas, meanwhile, are to remain inaccessible for both Belarusian and Russian citizens without the involvement of Lithuania’s institutions until May 2024.
If the discussions on the parliament floor and the rhetoric emanating from the President’s office already enraged many Belarusian nationals residing in Lithuania, a further blow was struck in August 2023. Shortly after the announcement that Wagner mercenaries were relocating to Belarus, Lithuania’s Department of Migration published a report detailing that 910 Belarusians have been deemed a threat to Lithuania’s national security and banned from entering the country since the introduction of the aforementioned questionnaire. These revelations not only provoked fresh discussions about the equalisation of restrictions for Russians and Belarusians but also sparked uproar among the sizable Belarusian diaspora. The latter raised several issues connected to the practice of labelling Belarusians as the new ‘fifth column’. The regularly cited concerns relate to the lack of clarity about the criteria used to divide people into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ asylum seekers. The screening procedure is undertaken exclusively by the security-services personnel who have the cover of non-disclosure, leaving the public bereft of any leverage to control their decisions. In some cases, people were reportedly deemed to be a ‘national security threat’ due to prior service in the army, military education, or simply employment in public sector companies. What bemuses Belarusian nationals most is the resolution and haphazardness with which the Lithuanian government deemed many of them supporters of ‘terrorism’ on account of actions taken by Lukashenko’s regime, over which they have very little influence.
Invisible asylum seekers
Apart from Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians, there is a fourth category of asylum seekers, whom the Lithuanian government has chosen to strip of their humanity altogether. This group is comprised of thousands of people from the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, including countries such as Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Syria, and Nigeria. Since early 2021, many of them have sought refuge from persecution, severe human rights violations, ecological catastrophes, and intolerable living conditions. Before attempting to enter Lithuania, they were lured into Belarus by the Belarusian government and the country’s ‘tour operators’, who spun tales of an easy and near-guaranteed asylum within the EU, provided they entered it from the Belarusian-Lithuanian frontier. However, what awaited them at this idyllic forested border was a barrage of pushbacks, arbitrary detention, and cruel, degrading treatment. EU officials and the Lithuanian government labelled the asylum seekers either as a ‘security threat’ to Fortress Europe or as ‘weapons’ in ‘hybrid warfare’. The latter was said to be orchestrated by Lukashenko’s regime in response to sanctions introduced after the 2020 election protests. Instead of offering protection to people fleeing the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa — and incidentally also Belarus, the country that the Lithuanian government considers to be run by a brutal dictator — the response was to further instrumentalize migrants and refugees in a political ploy. They were depicted as free-flowing nebulae and accused of being naïve for falling prey to the promises of a dictator and his entourage. Little wonder that their genuine concerns for protection were conveniently ignored.
Spring and summer 2021 had seen a sharp increase in the number of border crossings from Lithuania’s east. In response, the government declared an ‘extraordinary situation’ in early July of that year, citing a ‘mass influx’ of third-country nationals. The parliament subsequently approved a resolution labelling them participants in criminal activities linked to Lukashenko’s ‘hybrid aggression’. Legislative reforms were enacted in Lithuania’s Law on the Legal Status of Foreigners, aiming to curtail the right to seek asylum. These changes led to a multitude of human rights abuses, including violations of the principle of non-refoulment, collective expulsions, denial of access to asylum, arbitrary detention, inhumane treatment, and denial of due process, as reported by Amnesty International. Moreover, in contravention of international law, throughout 2021 Lithuanian border guards conducted over 8,000 pushbacks. The figure for 2022 stood at 11,200.
In April 2023, the Lithuanian parliament passed new regulations that legalised turning away migrants crossing from Belarus. This has formalised a practice that was already in place since summer 2021. Following the President’s approval of the said regulation in May 2023, so-called ‘irregular migrants’ can now be prevented from entering and sent back in the event of a state emergency if they are found five kilometres inland. In addition, the Lithuanian legislation now permits armed volunteers to patrol the border alongside border guards. According to Emilija Švobaitė, a volunteer in the Sienos Grupė organisation, any EU national can enrol in this scheme, provided they reside in Lithuania, possess some proficiency in the language, and are not actively engaged in the military. This mirrors the developments in Hungary during the 2015 European border crisis. At the time, the country’s police recruited 3,000 volunteers to patrol the southern border area. Alongside the police and the army, volunteer groups populated by fascist elements were mobilised in the name of ‘preventing’ violence that could be inflicted by refugees. Their members were handed pistols with live ammunition, pepper spray, batons, and handcuffs.
Before collective expulsions were legalised, anyone crossing the border and detected by border guards faced automatic detention in various facilities across Lithuania. Since then, only a small fraction of those reaching the country’s borders have been granted permission to enter and to stay. In most cases, under the new rules, entrants have been subjected to automatic detention. Hundreds have spent weeks confined at border crossing posts, temporary detention facilities — referred to as ‘concentrated camps’ by the Minister of Interior, in a regrettable choice of words — or on military bases before being transferred to other detention facilities. One year after the introduction of this new ‘regime of exception’, over 2,600 people, including almost 600 minors, remained detained, with most of them being held arbitrarily. The daily existence of an asylum seeker in Lithuania has become synonymous with degrading conditions, inhumane treatment, unlawful and excessive use of force, and harassment at the hands of Lithuanian guards. That institutional racism and Islamophobia have become embedded in the country’s asylum system is now patently clear. To appreciate the ferocity that the ‘invisible asylum seekers’ must endure daily, we need only consider the conditions of their detention.
In summer 2021, the Lithuanian administrative apparatus embarked upon a policy of subjecting arrivals from Belarus to de facto confinement, consigning them to a motley assortment of facilities that mostly fell far short of acceptable standards. These provisions encompassed rudimentary encampments, such as tents and modular containers, placed across the border crossings. More often than not, individuals were subjected to protracted periods of internment in these facilities, all devoid of any judicial sanction. Later in the autumn, the Lithuanian government commenced a gradual process of relocating refugees and migrants to three detention centres, also known as Foreigners’ Registration Centres (FRCs), which fell under the purview of the Ministry of Interior and were overseen by the State Border Guard Service (SBGS). These FRCs were situated in the towns of Medininkai, Kybartai, and Pabradė. Supplementary detention facilities, including Rukla and Naujininkai, managed by the Ministry of Social Security and Labour, were predominantly used for the accommodation of families, which included minors, and other individuals deemed to possess specific vulnerabilities. The observations made by Amnesty International personnel, who conducted site visits to the Medininkai and Kybartai FRCs in March 2022 and Lithuania’s Seimas (parliamentary) Ombudsperson after a visit to Kybartai FRC in January 2022, reveal a deeply disconcerting panorama. The Ombudsperson reports that detained asylum seekers lived in overcrowded accommodation that lacked private space, furniture, and other equipment. Severe restrictions were imposed on asylum seekers’ movement on the premises of the Registration Centre, which was also marked by the absence of personal hygiene or sufficient sanitation. The glaring absence, of or limited access to, adequate toilets and bathrooms forced people to walk in the open air to reach toilets or hot water, even at night and during Lithuania’s long and extremely harsh winters. All this amounted to inhumane or degrading treatment prohibited under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. For their part, Amnesty’s observers cited inadequate access to medical and mental healthcare, the low quality of water supplied by taps, and the lack of cooking facilities. Most notably, they refer to regular abuses towards asylum seekers by the members of the Lithuanian State and Border Guard Service who manage the FRCs. Torture and other ill-treatment, the unnecessary or excessive use of force, the use of racist language, as well as harassment and intimidation to convince people to return to their countries of origin, are common occurrences.
Considering the heightened frustration experienced by individuals subjected to arbitrary detention, atrocious living conditions as well as psychological and physical humiliation, it should come as no surprise that detainees occasionally resorted to peaceful protests. According to many, the ‘double standards’ employed by the Lithuanian authorities — resulting in wildly different treatment of those held at FRCs as compared to incoming Ukrainian refugees — were another reason to voice their discontent. As could be expected, the border guards met the protesters with force and acts of collective punishment, in which abuse was meted out to other detainees who had not even participated in the protests. The testimonies, gathered through separate interviews conducted by Amnesty’s staff, depict SBGS guards — sometimes acting in conjunction with a contingent of anti-riot officers affiliated with the Public Security Service — exercising violence against asylum seekers, including beatings with batons or other implements, the use of pepper spray, and the discharge of multiple electric charges via taser guns. Additionally, individuals were coerced to endure prolonged periods of handcuffing and stress positions, while food was withheld as a means of punishment. Some were also isolated for several days, having been identified by the guards as ‘troublemakers’. It has been purported by the Lithuanian Refugee Council that the guards also resorted to sexual violence against female detainees, allegations denied by the SBGS officials.
A glimpse at the Lithuanian public attitudes towards refugees reveals different perceptions about individual groups. According to the findings from the survey conducted by the Diversity Development Group NGO and the Department of Ethnic Studies at the Institute of Sociology (Lithuanian Social Science Centre), in September 2022 33.9% of Lithuanians would not like to live next to a Muslim neighbour, which compares unfavourably to a neighbour who is a refugee (27.3%), an Iraqi (22.2%), a Syrian (16.9%), Russian (16.2%), Belarusian (9.6%) or a Ukrainian (4.6%). If we weigh up these findings against those recorded in October 2021, just months before Russia’s full-scale invasion, a different picture emerges with the respective figures standing at 47.1% opposed to a refugee neighbour, 44.8% to a Muslim, 29.9% to an Iraqi, 26.1% to a Syrian, 7.3% to a Ukrainian, and 6.6% to a Belarusian. At least in part, this positive change towards an undifferentiated ‘refugee category’ can be explained by media discourse since the start of the war which almost exclusively used the term ‘refugee’ to refer to people coming from Ukraine. Those fleeing other countries have been referred to as ‘migrants’ and often as ‘irregulars’. Moreover, there has been a tendency to contrast so-called ‘migrants’ with refugees from Ukraine and brand them as a threat to both Lithuanians and Ukrainians. The Media4Change NGO reports that between June 2021 and July 2022, the lion’s share of coverage on non-white asylum seekers pertained to reporting on their detentions and the number of people pushed back at the border, with only a tiny fraction — 2% of all reporting — depicting migrants positively. The constant depiction of asylum seekers as ‘weapons of hybrid warfare’ did not encourage emotional involvement and empathy towards them. The media’s focus on praising the border guards for pushing people back into Belarus took precedence over discussions on the issue of human rights and discouraged reports on the situations in the countries people are fleeing from.
A handful of commentators sought to explain the tango between the Lithuanian public’s sympathy towards Ukrainian refugees and its opposition to their counterparts from the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa on the grounds of relatability. This popular reading suggests that Ukrainians are ‘more understandable’ and ‘more like us’ than those who come from ‘distant’ and ‘obscure’ lands. Therefore, the difference between our Eastern European reaction to the war in Ukraine and our reactions to wars and conflicts elsewhere should not be criticised. Seeing the buildings bombed by the Russian army that look so much like the ones we see at home, or observing Russian military equipment driving through streets that look like our sleeping quarters, is different from hearing that a country where, as far as you can remember, there has always been war. The problem with this seemingly convincing narrative is that it can all too easily transmogrify into a vulgar dichotomisation between ‘real’ and ‘superfluous’ refugees, thus engendering a convenient tool to justify racist asylum policies. Yet, as Agnė Rimkutė poignantly argues, none of the countries from Syria to Sri Lanka are safe and it is impossible to predict a priori why a person chose to risk entering Lithuanian territory. The far-right's insistence that the practice of assessing asylum applications is a needless exercise presupposes that neo-fascist politicians can sort people out with their third eye. Statements portending that Ukrainians are ‘atypical’ refugees insofar as they are intelligent and educated people, different from those with ‘obscure, terrorist pasts’ are illustrative of racism and Islamophobia. They are also profoundly dubious since neither intelligence nor education is checked at the border. To echo the earlier argument, these features never constituted the basis for granting or refusing asylum.
Lest it be forgotten, it should also be underscored that any attempt to rashly designate the entire expanse of East-Central Europe as a citadel of far-right reaction is but a glaring exemplar of simplistic and undiscerning analysis. As I argue elsewhere, the prevalence of racist and Islamophobic attitudes among sections of the public can be in part explained by revisiting the tumultuous years of post-Communist transformation. Apart from heighting a social crisis of extraordinary proportions, the 1990s also produced a less noticeable transformation in the language used to describe social reality. The concept of ‘class’ vacated public discourse, the media, and social sciences, to give way to neoliberal slogans that marginalised social critique. In the restored but now post-Soviet polity, politics started to evolve into compartmentalised discussions centred on democratic liberal rights and good governance — serving the goal of separating the state from the economy and society. The fight for social fairness became exclusively linked to the elimination of corruption and rent-seeking. Consequently, those lacking social security found themselves left with the category of ‘the nation’ — the only one available to address their pressing concerns. But the 2008 crisis then worked to morph the collective signifier of the ‘nation’ into a weapon against neoliberal governance and disinterested ‘Europeanist’ elites. This section of the elite was blamed for prioritising ‘alien diktats’ from Brussels over national interests. Often criticised for their perceived inability to adapt to the ‘new normal’ and nostalgic tendencies toward the recent Soviet past, the ‘transition losers’ (around half of Lithuania’s population) began to perceive themselves in opposition to both local minorities (the Roma community plus Russian- and Polish-speakers) and foreign surplus populations, whose concerns were supposedly prioritised by the ‘Europeanist’ elite. When the revered ‘return to Europe’ failed to deliver on the promises of rapidly catching up with Western living standards for the majority, the experiences of lost livelihoods, financial catastrophes, and abandoned familial connections due to emigration could only be filtered through the lens of an ‘ethnic nation’, predicated on the division between the ‘deserving locals’ who have not yet received what was promised to them, and despicable ‘surplus populations’. Curiously, within the ranks of the disenfranchised losers, the category of those ‘deserving’ solidarity and support could sometimes be extended to people coming from countries with the similar historical experience of occupation by and resistance against Moscow — something that the ‘Europeanist’ elite was eager to exploit in its shrewd political manoeuvering. That said, in all other instances the networks of solidarity pivoting on the concept of the ‘nation’ are bound to remain extremely selective and narrow. This begs the question: how far is the Lithuanian left
engaged in the project of expanding those webs of solidarity?
Responses on the Left
In navigating the intricate terrain of challenges posed by the cost-of-living, geopolitical, and ‘border’ crises, as well as the evolving contours of the asylum system, the Social-Democratic Party of Lithuania (Lietuvos socialdemokratų partija, LSDP), the third-largest opposition party, projected to win the next parliamentary elections in October 2024, prioritises silence and constructive ambiguity. Most of its members of parliament tend to adopt positions that are, by and large, indistinguishable from those taken by right-wing forces.
The party has been most effective in criticising the government for failing to address the economic fallout brought about by galloping inflation. On this register, the LSDP urged the conservative-liberal coalition to reduce the current VAT rate (21%) on basic foodstuffs. Other welcome proposals were to create an income tax deduction for people who rent and do not own property, end the automatic inclusion of people into the second-tier private pension fund (to give them more leeway in choosing how to invest their money without straining the state-run social security system), make tax-exempt income level equal to the minimum wage threshold, and differentiate energy subsidies to households based on earnings. Most of these policy initiatives, however, were disregarded by the government.
The area of national defence and foreign policy, the LSDP currently seeks to portray itself as the most serious political force. In 2023, the LSDP called for an increase in national defence funding to 3.5% of GDP, which would make Lithuania the second highest-spending NATO member (after Poland) by this metric. This call was accompanied by the urge to expand NATO ground forces permanently stationed in Lithuania to the size of a brigade (3,000-5,000 troops). The party also expressed its determination to support Ukraine through various political measures, including providing political backing in the dialogue with its partners within the Atlantic Alliance. The crucial point of focus before the Vilnius summit was to invite Ukraine to become a member of NATO. Despite this strong rhetoric, the party also expressed support for the actions set out in Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace plan, deemed necessary to bring the war to an end as soon as possible, and to restore its territorial integrity to the 1991 borders.
On the terrain of the ‘border crisis’ the Social Democrats take the position that it is necessary to distinguish between the criminal actions of Lukashenko’s regime and those who fall victim to the scheme. The party’s chairperson MEP Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, for example, argues that the ruling coalition’s treatment of ‘migrants’ as ‘participants in a hybrid war’ is a rhetorical move to frighten the country’s population into believing that the human rights of asylum seekers can be trampled upon in the name of national security interests. According to the Deputy Chair of the party, Dovilė Šakalienė, the protection of Lithuania’s eastern border and the EU’s entire border is a top priority, but cases of ‘irregular migration’ should be assessed individually. However, such positions should be considered in a broader context that reveals highly contradictory stances. On the one hand, Šakalienė has for the past two years been advocating measures to screen everyone from the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa prior to their arrival in Europe. This practice draws on what the Social-Democrat MP considers a ‘best practice’ from Denmark, whose parliament in 2021 approved legislation allowing the establishment of refugee screening centres in third countries. Foreigners en route to Denmark would receive decisions on their applications offshore, without setting foot in Fortress Europe. Yet another mechanism advocated by Šakalienė was to grant asylum in the countries where the centres are established. In the Danish model, this means Rwanda — a country heavily reliant on Western aid, and thus unable to refuse such a deal. On the other, it ought to be noted that among the members of the Lithuanian parliament who voted in favour of legalising pushbacks, we can find four members of the Social Democratic group. Not a single member of the group voted against it. Such actions in parliament by the self-described ‘only left-wing political force in Lithuania’ are nothing but an example of its opportunism and ideological bankruptcy. Within left-wing activist circles, many have long been disillusioned with the LDSP’s capacity to affect change that would fundamentally challenge the neoliberal status quo.
Against this backdrop, it was extra-parliamentary forces outside the political mainstream that sought to provide humanitarian aid to people trapped in the border zones, broaden the discussion about the war and join the initiatives of Ukrainian left organisations in the wake of the invasion. Since October 2021, the voluntary organisation Sienos Grupė (the Border Group) has been at the forefront of providing humanitarian aid to asylum seekers crossing the Belarusian-Lithuanian border. This organisation is staffed by Lithuanians working in humanitarian fields and activists from other EU countries, including the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Poland, and Portugal. Its activities revolve around aiding those trapped in forest areas by providing essentials like clothing, food, and medicine. Moreover, the group has been providing instructions and training on how to survive in sub-zero temperatures and forest environments. They receive location information from individuals in the forests through an emergency number, after which the volunteers assemble necessary supplies in backpacks and transport them to the location by car. The group also conducted searches and delivered requested items, such as hot beverages, warm clothing, and pain relievers to asylum seekers. Almost immediately after the start of the group’s operations in the forests populating the border, the SBGS announced that the pre-trial process had been initiated to investigate ‘human smuggling’ — implying that it was the Sienos Grupė’s volunteers who organised people trafficking due to their failure to immediately inform the border guard about the people found in the forest. There is no requirement for Lithuanian civilians to inform the authorities about any people they meet in the forest. This move has been interpreted as an attempt to criminalise the humanitarian initiatives undertaken by the group.
In articulating responses to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the political movement Left Alliance (Kairiųjų aljansas) joined the Polish party Razem and other organisations in the Czech Republic, Romania, Denmark, and Finland in issuing a call for military aid to Ukraine, debt relief, support for refugees, and sanctions on Russia. Together with the May 1 Labour Union (Gegužės 1-osios profsąjunga) the Left Alliance also sought to bring the issue of Ukraine’s debt to Lithuanian public attention. Working together with trade unions in Ukraine and the left-wing organisation Sotsialnyi rukh (Social Movement), they initiated the petition calling on Lithuanian MEPs and the Minister of Finance to lobby for transferring Ukraine’s external debt administration costs to the European Central Bank and consider the possibility of writing off this debt altogether. The petition, which made the case for the establishment of the Ukrainian Support Fund at the EU level and emphasised that the debt burden impedes any discussion about Ukraine’s post-war recovery, has attracted hundreds of signatures from politicians, members of the LSDP, activists, organisations, and the public in general. In 2022, the topic of war in Ukraine also featured as a central theme in the left-wing festival of ideas Kombinatas — a yearly event organised by the progressive media platform Gyvenimas per brangus (GPB), student organisation Šauksmas, Extinction Rebellion Lietuva, Kaunas-based community centre Emma, social movement Luna6, and the May 1 Labour Union. It brought dozens of leftist activists and researchers from the post-Soviet space to discuss the Left’s responses to the war in Ukraine, ‘Putinism’, and opposition movements in Russia, among other topics.
Despite their very small size, lack of funds, and existence in an environment that remains antagonistic to progressive imaginaries, it is these organisations that hold the promise of engaging in struggles to transform the landscape of Lithuanian politics in a more humane, egalitarian, and emancipatory direction. To be sure, this promises to be a protracted endeavour, yet there may well be a glimmer of hope on the distant horizon.