Few people with undeclared KGB past could be in public service in Lithuania – official

“Certainly, there could be a person or two, but we have to understand that 30 years have since elapsed. How old must these people be?” Teresė Birutė Burauskaitė told BNS.

“Very few, I think,” she said when asked how many former KGB collaborators unknown to Lithuania’s authorities could be working in state institutions.

Lithuanian intelligence said in a report published on Monday that Russian security agencies are targeting public servants who have not declared their collaboration with the KGB.

“For recruitment of Lithuanian citizens, the Russian intelligence services still use the classified archives about the former KGB agents in Lithuania. Russian intelligence seeks and tries to discredit former secret KGB collaborators, who had not declared this fact, those who currently hold office in Lithuanian state institutions and possess information of interest to Russian intelligence or can influence decision making,” the State Security Department and the Second Investigations Department under the Defense Ministry said in their annual report on threats to national security.

According to Burauskaitė, the Genocide and Resistance Research Center is not aware of the intelligence information, but it is possible that these people were former secret KGB collaborators whose dossiers were shipped to Russia after Lithuania regained independence.

The center in January completed publishing a register of KGB archival dossiers, a gradual process that took five years.

Historians say some of the KGB archives in Lithuania could have been destroyed and a large portion could have been taken away to Russia.