Edward Lucas: Belarus spying in Lithuania for Russia

Belarus is spying in Lithuania on the instruction of Russia.

The opinion was expressed by British journalist Edward Lucas, a senior editor for the Economist and author of books about Russia's spying, ru.DELFI.lt reports.

“Belarus does two things, it's spying as Belarus and it's also acting as a proxy for the Russians. So one of the questions would be whether this is part of Belarus' bilateral espionage efforts on Lithuania or whether this is Belarusian KGB acting on behalf of their Russian brothers,” Lucas told BNS by phone.

He says the Russian and Belarusian intelligence service are so much interested in Lithuania as they see it as a way of accessing EU and NATO secrets.

"Lithuania is absolutely on the front line as this espionage war goes on because the Russians and Belarusians are interested both in Lithuania as Lithuania but also as a way to Western organizations and structures,” Lucas said.

According to him, the operation by the State Security Department (VSD) in identifying two Lithuanian citizens who spied for Belarus reflects the progress achieved, as for many years Western countries have tried to play down the danger of Russian espionage.

The British expert says many questions would arise if one looked into the VSD's information that 11 foreign intelligence officers were sent out of Lithuania for disclosed spying in 2004-2014.

“So these people were sent home. Why wasn't it made public? What happened to the people they were recruiting? Were they all completely unsuccessful? I doubt it. They must have recruited somebody. And if they recruited somebody, what happened to that person? Why wasn't he prosecuted. These are interesting questions," Lucas said.

The Lithuanian aiuthorities said yesterday two Lithuanians working for the Belarusian security services were detained. One of them was collecting information about military aviation for the KGB.