Lithuania has intelligence from espionage services indicating that Russia is planning attacks on infrastructure, and security measures around energy and transportation targets will be strengthened as a precaution. The Kremlin denies Lithuania’s accusations and accuses NATO of militarizing the Baltic countries.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda stated in an interview with the BNS news agency, published on Wednesday, that he does not have information about the timing or location of the planned attacks and does not know for certain if his country is the target of the attacks, as reported by Reuters, cited by News.ro.
Lithuanian espionage knows there is a plan
"We have such signals that we receive from our intelligence services. They do not clearly identify the place or time... Because the adversary has not completed the planning, and we only know about the planning or the target," Nauseda said.
"There could be various means intended to cause physical damage to critical infrastructure... anything that could disrupt the operation of these targets," he added.
Lithuania - a NATO member state with land borders with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus, Moscow's ally - has tripled its defense spending since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Poland, a neighboring country, stated earlier this month that Western intelligence agencies are concerned about the risk of Russian attacks against its territory and the Baltic states.
Russia blames NATO
The Kremlin rejected on Wednesday the accusations made by Lithuanian authorities that Russia is preparing attacks on critical infrastructure in this country.
Moscow argues that such claims are a justification for the intensification of militarization in the Baltic states and the strengthening of NATO's presence in the region, as reported by Reuters, cited by Mediafax.
"This is just the latest series of alarmist stories designed to continue manipulating the population and prepare it for further militarization," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
The Russian official added that the Baltic states need to present Russia as an adversary to justify the development of NATO's military infrastructure in the region.
"To achieve this, it is necessary to present another country - in this case Russia - as an enemy, using this pretext to expand NATO's military infrastructure in all its forms in the Baltic states," Peskov said.
Relations between Russia and the Baltic states have significantly deteriorated in recent years, especially after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Lithuania, along with Latvia and Estonia, has strengthened its security measures and supported the reinforcement of NATO's eastern flank.
Moscow has consistently denied accusations of planning or carrying out sabotage actions and other attacks against countries outside Ukraine, stating that such reports are part of an anti-Russian propaganda campaign.
At the same time, Moscow repeatedly accuses the North Atlantic Alliance of expanding its military infrastructure near Russian borders and considers this development a threat to its security.