About 700 Lithuanian statutory officers attend training to deter “little green men”

Under the tactical training scenario worked out by instructions from Interior Ministry Eimutis Misiūnas, special forces of a country hostile to Lithuania have illegally crossed the border and readied to take over one of the border checkpoints and the Šalčininkai police station.

“There was a simulation of intrusion of the little green men into Lithuania’s territory and their getting off a train,” Misiūnas told journalists after the training.

“Little green men” was a term used to describe Russian troops who assisted annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014. The minister, however, did not confirm that the exercise was intended to deter Russian saboteurs.

Chiefs of the police, the State Border Guard Service and the Public Security Services were the only ones notified of the exercise, while ordinary officers and operators of the emergency center did not know this was a training.