It also decided to close the Russian consulate in Klaipėda.
„The Government of Lithuania, in response to Russia's ongoing military aggression against sovereign Ukraine and the atrocities committed by the Russian armed forces in various occupied Ukrainian cities, including the horrific massacres in Buche and other Ukrainian cities, has decided to downgrade the level of diplomatic representation.
The Ambassador of the Russian Federation will be obliged to leave Lithuania,“ announced Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis.
The Minister also announced that the Lithuanian Ambassador to Moscow would soon return to Vilnius, and the Lithuanian Ambassador to Ukraine will return to Kyiv. Contacts with Russia will be conducted at the level of trustees.
„The brutality of the Russian occupation forces has exceeded any norms of a civilised world. But unfortunately, what the world has seen in Buche may be only the beginning. There are more horrific examples of war crimes to be seen in the liberation of other towns. He warned that all war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine would not be forgotten“, he warned.
The Government informed its NATO and European Union (EU) partners of these decisions on Monday and invited them to do the same. According to Landsbergis, the member states are considering this option and will announce their decisions soon.
„It is my ambition and the ambition of the Lithuanian Government that the crimes be assessed by the courts as soon as possible. Real responsibility is claimed from those who gave the orders, who ordered the crimes and who committed them directly,“ the Minister said.
He reiterated his call on Russia to halt its aggression, implement the judgement of the International Court of Justice and withdraw from the remaining territory of Ukraine.
„I will probably not get tired of repeating that we must go further with sanctions, with new restrictions. But, in my view, the best and most effective step today would be to abandon the oil trade with Russia immediately. This is both technically doable and would be the greatest damage to the Russian budget.
In fact, with the money it receives from oil and other energy sources and trade, Russia is apparently partly supporting the ruble, thus also stopping the effectiveness of other sanctions,“ Landsbergis noted.
The international community was angered by the discovery of mass graves and hundreds of brutally murdered civilians in the small town of Bucha, northwest of Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Moscow of massacring civilians.
Russia rejects these accusations and claims Kyiv faked the corpses' video footage in Butka.
