Lithuanian PM: war in Ukraine has shown fight with Bolshevik occupation dragon isn’t over

VILNIUS – The war in Ukraine has shown that fight with Bolshevik occupation dragon is not over yet, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte has said as the country marks the 81st anniversary of Soviet deportations.

“The Day of Mourning and Hope has its special hue every year. This year, it has got a new meaning as the war in Ukraine has shown that fight with Bolshevik occupation dragon isn’t over yet,” a press release from the government quoted her as saying.

According to the prime minister, earlier it looked that deportations in cattle wagons were Lithuania’s first particularly painful wound of occupation but everything came to an end when the last troop of the occupation army left Lithuania, yet the war in Ukraine showed that fight is not over yet.

“We can be more specific now – enormous efforts are being made during the war in Ukraine to finally end that totalitarian empire because it has become evident to us that if you cut off the head of the dragon, the other one, even fiercer, will grow back necessarily,” Simonyte said.

“We are a nation that has suffered a lot but that is why we can draw strength and hope from our history. Our grandparents endured the test of exile, remained strong and, most importantly, preserved humanity. This strengthens the belief that we will withstand even the last convulsions of this multi-headed dragon and will finally be able to say that a very long and difficult struggle against Soviet imperialism has been won,” she added.

Lithuania on Tuesday marks the Day of Mourning and Hope – 81 years ago the Soviets started mass deportations of Lithuanian residents into remote areas of the Soviet Union after the Baltic country's occupation.

Soviet repressive structures started mass deportations of Lithuanian residents into remote northern areas at 3 a.m. on June 14, 1941.

Some 18,000 Lithuanian residents were deported over the course of several days, according to the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania.

The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania on June 15, 1940 and imprisoned and deported some 280,000 Lithuanian citizens over the occupation period.