PM calls against associating Russians, Belarusians in Lithuania with Putin, Lukashenko

VILNIUS – Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte says one cannot associate Russian and Belarusian people in Lithuania with the crimes of Russian and Belarusian leaders Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko just because of their shared ethnicity.

"I wouldn’t want to see the emergence of some reproaches for Lithuanian citizens and attempts to somehow associate them with Putin or Lukashenko crimes just because of their ethnicity," she told reporters on Tuesday.

"We need to by all means to prevent that since yes, there's no secret that there are probably people in all countries who, for some hard-to-believe-reason, find Mr. Putin worthy of some compliments or some positive feelings, but usually those things have nothing to do with people's ethnicity," Simonyte said.

"We can find people of different ethnicities among those people, and I have no doubt that Russian and Belarusian people living in Lithuania are true patriots of our country, and this is why I would like to ask everyone not to make this issue additional food for Russian and Belarusian propaganda as that would be a complete lie," the Lithuanian prime minister said.

Last week, Russia attacked Ukraine, causing condemnation across the world.