Belarus' KGB activity at 'historical high' now – Lithuania's intelligence chief

VILNIUS – The Lithuanian State Security Department (SSD) is currently observing an unprecedented level of activity from Belarus' KGB, Darius Jauniskis, the intelligence agency's director, has said.   

"We see intensified activity specifically from the Belarusian KGB, which is actually at a historical high; it has never been this intense before," he told LRT Radio on Sunday. 

Some members of the sizable Belarusian diaspora in Lithuania raise certain concerns for the intelligence body, according to Jauniskis.

"Let's not forget that we have a very large Belarusian diaspora here, individuals come here and, in fact, raise certain counter-intelligence issues," he said.  

The spreading of Russian propaganda is also intensifying in Lithuania, the director said.  

"I think Russia had slowed down this activity, probably when it started the war in Ukraine, because they expected a very easy victory and got stuck there, but now we feel a certain intensification," he said.

Jauniskis said he had no information indicating that unfriendly countries' services are attempting to recruit public officials, civil servant or politicians. 

"I have no such intelligence at the moment," he said. "And if there are attempts, I have no doubt that that we will track this down and see this," he said. 

The SSD director said that the recent intensification of hoax bomb threats targeting schools and other places in Lithuania is part of information attacks by hostile forces.  

"As to all these threats to blow up schools or certain institutions, or a hydro power plant and airports, we must understand that we are already caught up in this whirlpool," he said. 

"These are information operations designed to create confusion in our minds, turn us against each other, and make us live in a sense of uncertainty all the time and think that things are very bad. No doubt, we see and state this," he said. 

In October, bomb threats targeting schools and other organizations, including the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, intensified and continued in Lithuania, but none of them were turned out to be real.