Lithuania relocates Soviet-era Red Army graves amid dispute with Russia

Lithuania is relocating Soviet-era Red Army graves as part of a wider effort to remove remaining symbols linked to Soviet rule, a process that has led to renewed tension with Russia.

At a wartime burial site in Vievis, west of Vilnius, archaeologists have been uncovering the remains of Red Army soldiers at one of several memorial sites created by Moscow after the Second World War. The remains are due to be reburied at a nearby Orthodox cemetery.

Lithuania removed most Soviet monuments after regaining independence in 1990, but began moving Soviet soldiers' graves only after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Lithuania is a close ally of Kyiv and is now a member of the European Union and NATO. It borders Russia and Belarus and fears it could face a future invasion as the war in Ukraine continues into its fifth year.

Lithuania's parliament passed a so-called de-Sovietisation law shortly after the start of the war, allowing the removal of remaining Soviet monuments and the relocation of graves. At that time, 157 burial sites of Second World War-era Soviet soldiers were listed in the country's cultural heritage register.

Vilnius has removed protected status from four of the burial sites. Rita Kunceviciene, who handles heritage objects at Lithuania's Culture Ministry, said the protection had originally been used to prevent Russia from altering the sites without state approval. She said Russians had changed plaques at some locations by increasing the listed number of buried soldiers.

Lithuania began relocating Soviet graves in Pumpenai in July 2023, then in Siauliai in April 2026, and in Vievis earlier in July 2026. Russia has condemned the excavations, called them an attempt to rewrite history, and summoned Lithuania's envoy several times to protest what it described as a barbaric plan.

According to a recent report by Baltic investigative journalists, the Kremlin is preparing an international court case over alleged discrimination against ethnic Russians, and the relocation of Soviet graves could become part of it. Indre Makaraityte, an investigative reporter at Lithuania's public broadcaster LRT, said Russia uses international forums to promote a narrative that the Baltic states support Nazism and discriminate against ethnic Russian minorities.

Russia has also accused Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia of discrimination against Russian culture and of committing a crime under Russian law after the Baltic states took similar steps. Lithuania has separately protested the recent destruction of monuments to people deported to Siberia and to Baltic and Polish victims of Stalinist atrocities.

Lithuania's foreign ministry said the relocation of the remains is allowed under international law. It cited Article 17 of the First Geneva Convention, which sets out measures for later exhumations, identification of bodies and possible repatriation of remains.

Tadas Simonauskas, the chief archaeologist at the Vievis site, said the memorial had served a propaganda purpose. Local pensioner Petras Martisius said the monument had presented Soviet forces as liberators and should have been moved earlier. Vaidas Andriejauskas, from the local Elektrenai municipality overseeing the process, said the site had been a Soviet symbol of control, but said Lithuania would rebuild a small monument for the soldiers at the cemetery and was not erasing evidence that they existed.