Lithuanian genocide centre urges critical approach to KGB agents’ list

All agents on the list were recruited by the KGB or other Soviet security authorities, but not all of these persons wanted to cooperate with the Soviets and not all of these agents should be treated equally, the center said in a press release on Monday.

“Some messengers (of partisans), partisans or people not linked to partisans agreed to become agents when arrested during the partisan war in order to escape from the NKVD, but once released, they would retreat to the forest, or inform the partisans or people close to them that they had been recruited, or hide somewhere else,” it said.

According to historians researching the Soviet occupation period, some people linked to the underground resistance movement would become agents with the partisans’ approval in order to supply the security authorities with disinformation. Some people, once recruited, provided security officials with misleading or unimportant information and avoided collaborating with them. The auhtorities brought criminal cases against several people who tried to flee to the West after begin recruited.

The center finished publishing the register last Saturday. It was a gradual process that took five years. The names of KGB agents made public most recently include those of actor Donatas Banionis and conductor Saulius Sondeckis.

“One has to take a critical approach to the published list, just like to many KGB documents. The entire register of agents was written by hand. Several final entries were made with a slightly different pen, in different handwriting. No chronological order was observed and, therefore, special attention was paid to checking the data on the register,” the centre said.

“The last entries include not only Banionis and Sondeckis, but also Antanas Urbonas, the man who betrayed (partisan commander) Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas and whose collaboration with the KGB raises no doubts,” it said.

According to the center, it was obliged by law to make the KGB’s documents public. It started publishing the register in late 2012 and finished on Jan. 5. Data on a total of 1,669 people were analysed.