Freedom Defenders Day in Lithuania

[Tidewater]

On this day in 1991, the Soviets tried to reassert control over Lithuania, specifically by taking over the radio and television stations in Vilnius.
Lithuanians responded by blocking the path of Soviet tanks.
Lithuania marks 30 years since deadly 1991 Soviet assault
Thirteen died. Hundreds were wounded.
But Lithuania got her freedom and independence back.

 

[NationalTitles18]

On this day in 1991, the Soviets tried to reassert control over Lithuania, specifically by taking over the radio and television stations in Vilnius.
Lithuanians responded by blocking the path of Soviet tanks.
Lithuania marks 30 years since deadly 1991 Soviet assault
Thirteen died. Hundreds were wounded.
But Lithuania got her freedom and independence back.

Hopefully impeachment can begin that process here today.

 

[Tidewater]

Here is a nice touch.
In March 2019, Lithuania convicted in absentia 67 former Soviet citizens "for war crimes and crimes against humanity."
So, in July 2018, Russia opened a criminal case against Lithuanian judges and prosecutors involved.
And last December 2020, Russia‘s Investigative Committee brought charges against Lithuanian judges.
Nice.

 

[Its On A Slab]

Here is a nice touch.
In March 2019, Lithuania convicted in absentia 67 former Soviet citizens "for war crimes and crimes against humanity."
So, in July 2018, Russia opened a criminal case against Lithuanian judges and prosecutors involved.
And last December 2020, Russia‘s Investigative Committee brought charges against Lithuanian judges.
Nice.

The Russian Bear wants its' old Soviet empire back.

Just like Erdogan does with the Ottoman Empire.

My wife is Armenian(refugee from Azerbaijan after the 1st Nagorno Karabakh war), so I am watching what's going down in Nagorno Karabakh with much interest. Turks being Turks, Russia obligated to defend Armenia, but also doesn't want to enflame their oil buddies in Azerbaijan.

 

[Go Bama]

Here is a nice touch.
In March 2019, Lithuania convicted in absentia 67 former Soviet citizens "for war crimes and crimes against humanity."
So, in July 2018, Russia opened a criminal case against Lithuanian judges and prosecutors involved.
And last December 2020, Russia‘s Investigative Committee brought charges against Lithuanian judges.
Nice.

Your dates don't make sense to me. Should it possibly read, "So, in July 2019........."?

 

[TexasBama]

I'd like to visit Vilnius

 

[Tidewater]

Your dates don't make sense to me. Should it possibly read, "So, in July 2019........."?

It's the vagaries of the Russian criminal process. That was the start of the criminal investigation. IN December 20202 the case closed with a sentence to prison. It is just a nice touch to order the imprisonment of foreign judges.
Russia probably should have just said, "The USSR and Russia are two separate political entities, so no skin off our nose. Convict away." Instead, Russia has now acknowledged ownership of the brutal crushing of dissent in Vilnius in 1991. They have said, "Yeah, we did that."

 

[Tidewater]

I'd like to visit Vilnius

Vilnius is a cool town. My nickname at work is the Vilnius Nastavnik.
I like the Lithuanians I have worked with a lot. Solid, no nonsense people.
Užupis is the Bohemian neighborhood. It asserts its independence and has its own constitution:

1. Everyone has the right to live by the River Vilnelė, and the River Vilnelė has the right to flow by everyone.
2. Everyone has the right to hot water, heating in winter and a tiled roof.
3. Everyone has the right to die, but this is not an obligation.
4. Everyone has the right to make mistakes.
5. Everyone has the right to be unique.
6. Everyone has the right to love.
7. Everyone has the right not to be loved, but not necessarily.
8. Everyone has the right to be undistinguished and unknown.
9. Everyone has the right to idle.
10. Everyone has the right to love and take care of the cat.
11. Everyone has the right to look after the dog until one of them dies.
12. A dog has the right to be a dog.
13. A cat is not obliged to love its owner, but must help in time of need.
14. Sometimes everyone has the right to be unaware of their duties.
15. Everyone has the right to be in doubt, but this is not an obligation.
16. Everyone has the right to be happy.
17. Everyone has the right to be unhappy.
18. Everyone has the right to be silent.
19. Everyone has the right to have faith.
20. No one has the right to violence.

 

[Go Bama]

It's the vagaries of the Russian criminal process. That was the start of the criminal investigation. IN December 20202 the case closed with a sentence to prison. It is just a nice touch to order the imprisonment of foreign judges.
Russia probably should have just said, "The USSR and Russia are two separate political entities, so no skin off our nose. Convict away." Instead, Russia has now acknowledged ownership of the brutal crushing of dissent in Vilnius in 1991. They have said, "Yeah, we did that."

I still don't understand why Russia would open a criminal case against Lithuanian judges and prosecutors in response to and event that would not occur until the next year.

I have to be missing something basic here.

In pictures, Vilnius looks like a medieval town.

 

[Tidewater]

I still don't understand why Russia would open a criminal case against Lithuanian judges and prosecutors in response to and event that would not occur until the next year.

I have to be missing something basic here.

Oh, okay. The "event" occurred in 1991, when the Soviet Army attempted to take over the radio station in Vilnius, and independence-minded Lithuanians took to the streets to block the way of the Soviet tanks. In the scuffle that ensued, 14 Lithuanian civilians were killed and hundreds were wounded.
In 2019, Lithuania finally convicted the leaders of the Red Army for war crimes, and convicted them in absentia. (The trials started years earlier in January 2016 and March 2019 was only the sentencing.)
In the meantime (after the beginning of the Lithuanian trials, but before the sentencing in absentia of the accused), the Russians took offense at ex-Soviet soldiers being tried in Lithuanian courts so the Russian state tried the Lithuanian judges in absentia in Russian courts.

In pictures, Vilnius looks like a medieval town.

It is a pretty town. Of the three Baltic capitals, I like Tallinn the best, then Vilnius. A distant third is Riga. The Old Town looks like a Hanseatic League Town (which it was), but the area around Old Town Riga has suffered from poor Soviet architecture: cheap and grimy. Interestingly, when strangers spoke to me on the streets of Riga, they naturally spoke Russian to me right off the bat. Not sure why.

 

[Go Bama]

Oh, okay. The "event" occurred in 1991, when the Soviet Army attempted to take over the radio station in Vilnius, and independence-minded Lithuanians took to the streets to block the way of the Soviet tanks. In the scuffle that ensued, 14 Lithuanian civilians were killed and hundreds were wounded.
In 2019, Lithuania finally tried the leaders of the Red Army for war crimes, and convicted them in absentia.
In the meantime, the Russians took offense at ex-Soviet soldiers being tried in Lithuanian courts so the Russian state tried the Lithuanian judges in absentia in Russian courts.

[QUOTE="Go Bama]In pictures, Vilnius looks like a medieval town.

It is a pretty town. Of the three Baltic capitals, I like Tallinn the best, then Vilnius. A distant third is Riga. The Old Town looks like a Hanseatic League Town (which it was), but the area around Old Town has suffered from poor Soviet architecture: cheap and grimy. Interestingly, when strangers spoke to me on the streets of Riga, they naturally spoke Russian to me right off the bat. Not sure why.
[/QUOTE]
Gotcha. Thanks.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Oh, okay. The "event" occurred in 1991, when the Soviet Army attempted to take over the radio station in Vilnius, and independence-minded Lithuanians took to the streets to block the way of the Soviet tanks. In the scuffle that ensued, 14 Lithuanian civilians were killed and hundreds were wounded.
In 2019, Lithuania finally convicted the leaders of the Red Army for war crimes, and convicted them in absentia. (The trials started years earlier in January 2016 and March 2019 was only the sentencing.)
In the meantime (after the beginning of the Lithuanian trials, but before the sentencing in absentia of the accused), the Russians took offense at ex-Soviet soldiers being tried in Lithuanian courts so the Russian state tried the Lithuanian judges in absentia in Russian courts.


It is a pretty town. Of the three Baltic capitals, I like Tallinn the best, then Vilnius. A distant third is Riga. The Old Town looks like a Hanseatic League Town (which it was), but the area around Old Town Riga has suffered from poor Soviet architecture: cheap and grimy. Interestingly, when strangers spoke to me on the streets of Riga, they naturally spoke Russian to me right off the bat. Not sure why.

That's a puzzle. You don't have a Slavic face. I guess you neither have a Baltic face...

 

[Crimson1967]

Would the Baltic states be described as “free” today? What about the former Soviet block countries and other Soviet Republics?

 

[Tidewater]

That's a puzzle. You don't have a Slavic face. I guess you neither have a Baltic face...

I found it strange. It happened several times. Maybe I dress like a Russian. Or, since it was January and that is pretty far north, and it was almost always dark, they just couldn't see well.

 

[Tidewater]

Would the Baltic states be described as “free” today? What about the former Soviet block countries and other Soviet Republics?

I think Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are as free as other EU members.
I think the consensus among Russian citizens is that they are never getting those three back.

Now, the other former Soviet republic's (e.g. Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, etc.) is varies quite a bit.
Moldova just voted out the pro-Kremlin oligarch and installed a female Harvard grad, Maia Sandu. Moldova is poor (the poorest country in Europe), but able to hold honest elections.
Belarus just "re-elected" its neo-Soviet dictator in an election in which probably 80% of Belarusians are certain was fraudulent.
It varies.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

I think Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia are as free as other EU members.
I think the consensus among Russian citizens is that they are never getting those three back.

Now, the other former Soviet republic's (e.g. Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, etc.) is varies quite a bit.
Moldova just voted out the pro-Kremlin oligarch and installed a female Harvard grad, Maia Sandu. Moldova is poor (the poorest country in Europe), but able to hold honest elections.
Belarus just "re-elected" its neo-Soviet dictator in an election in which probably 80% of Belarusians are certain was fraudulent.
It varies.

It's important to note that, in all of those former Soviet republics, there was considerable in-migration by Russian ethnics. Without looking it up, I think that the Baltics had more deeply-settled Russian populations (still speaking Russian, so not assimilated) than any of the others, excluding Ukraine. (Chatting with a young Ukrainian girl who'd migrated to the US last year, I thought her response about which languages she spoke, she named Ukrainian, English and then "of course Russian.") Those Russian minorities have made it very difficult for Russia to accept the divorce...

Edit: "Lilli" in the AT&T commercials is from Tashkent. Her family is Jewish, original name "Wayntrub." I thought "how odd," then it occurred to me - "Weintraub," ("Wine grape" in Yiddish.) Of course...

 

[Tidewater]

It's important to note that, in all of those former Soviet republics, there was considerable in-migration by Russian ethnics. Without looking it up, I think that the Baltics had more deeply-settled Russian populations (still speaking Russian, so not assimilated) than any of the others, excluding Ukraine. (Chatting with a young Ukrainian girl who'd migrated to the US last year, I thought her response about which languages she spoke, she named Ukrainian, English and then "of course Russian.") Those Russian minorities have made it very difficult for Russia to accept the divorce...

Ukraine is sort of a special case. In western Ukraine, you will find more Polish speakers, and even in Transcarpathia, Hungarian speakers. in the middle most will speak Ukrainian and Russian.In the east (Donbas) more Russian speakers. Since the fighting, the separatists have kicked most of the Ukrainian speakers out of the breakaway republics, which is why Stalin sent them, to "complicate" any secession movement in Ukraine.
Estonia and Latvia have about 25% of their residents speaking Russian. Some of those in Latvia have been there for centuries. Old Believers who refused to accept Peter the Great's reforms of the Russian Orthodox faith, so they left the empire. Most of the Latvian and Estonian russophones were moved in after the Second World War. Lithuania is around 6.8% Russian-speaking. When I asked a Lithuanian why Lithuania's russophone population is lower than the other two, he said, "Our resistance was better at killing the Russian immigrants. Eventually, Stalin stopped sending them."
In Moldova, the more russophone area of Transnistria seceded from Moldova when Moldova seceded from the USSR, which is precisely why Stalin sent the Russians in after WW II. It is still an unrecognized breakaway region. 34% Russian, 33% Moldovan, 27% Ukrainian.

Edit: "Lilli" in the AT&T commercials is from Tashkent. Her family is Jewish, original name "Wayntrub." I thought "how odd," then it occurred to me - "Weintraub," ("Wine grape" in Yiddish.) Of course...

Did not know that. She is a cute "girl next door" kind of look to her, but now that you mention it, it does not surprise me to learn she is of Jewish extraction.

 

[Go Bama]

Did not know that. She is a cute "girl next door" kind of look to her,

She doesn't look like any girl I've ever lived next door to. That girl can stop traffic.

 

[TIDE-HSV]

Ukraine is sort of a special case. In western Ukraine, you will find more Polish speakers, and even in Transcarpathia, Hungarian speakers. in the middle most will speak Ukrainian and Russian.In the east (Donbas) more Russian speakers. Since the fighting, the separatists have kicked most of the Ukrainian speakers out of the breakaway republics, which is why Stalin sent them, to "complicate" any secession movement in Ukraine.
Estonia and Latvia have about 25% of their residents speaking Russian. Some of those in Latvia have been there for centuries. Old Believers who refused to accept Peter the Great's reforms of the Russian Orthodox faith, so they left the empire. Most of the Latvian and Estonian russophones were moved in after the Second World War. Lithuania is around 6.8% Russian-speaking. When I asked a Lithuanian why Lithuania's russophone population is lower than the other two, he said, "Our resistance was better at killing the Russian immigrants. Eventually, Stalin stopped sending them."
In Moldova, the more russophone area of Transnistria seceded from Moldova when Moldova seceded from the USSR, which is precisely why Stalin sent the Russians in after WW II. It is still an unrecognized breakaway region. 34% Russian, 33% Moldovan, 27% Ukrainian.

Did not know that. She is a cute "girl next door" kind of look to her, but now that you mention it, it does not surprise me to learn she is of Jewish extraction.

Google her and read her and her family's history. It's remarkable in their persistence. The Ukrainian girl I mentioned was from Donbas...

 

[Tidewater]

Google her and read her and her family's history. It's remarkable in their persistence. The Ukrainian girl I mentioned was from Donbas...

I was chatting with a friend about Russia's demographic problems (they lost another 600,000 inhabitants in 2020). He said, "They have problems. It takes decades to make a Russian. We can create 600,000 Americans tomorrow by loosening immigration restrictions."