The rally took place in the square named after Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition leader killed in 2015.
People brought Lithuanian, Georgian and EU flags to the rally organized by the opposition conservative Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats. Some people carried banners saying STOP RUSSIAN AGGRESION and Free Sakartvelo.
Vytautas Landsbergis, the HU-LCD honorary chairman and Lithuania’s first post-independence leader, says Russia “feels it has free hands” due to the absence of adequate reaction to the fact that Georgia lost part of its territory.
He called on the international community to “stop being afraid”.
“The liberation of Lithuania started when people stopped being afraid,” Landsbergis told journalists. “Calls to change the situation tomorrow are not real but they have a symbolic meaning as a reminder that injustice won’t last forever. We believed for 50 years that injustice would not last forever. So ten years is not that much.”
After the 2008 war, Moscow recognized the Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independence countries after they declared their independence in the last century. Russia also permanently stations thousands of its troops in these territories.
The international community considers South Ossetia and Abkhazia to be occupied territories of Georgia.