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The State Security Department (SSD) submitted this assessment to the Vilnius City Municipal Administration, which requested an assessment of possible threats to public or state security that may arise in future protests.
“Recently, such events in Lithuania, in addition to peaceful participants, also attract propagandists of political extremism, supporters of the ruling Kremlin and Minsk regimes, and people prone to use violence,” assessed the SSD.
Analyzing August 10. It was stated that neither the organizers of the event nor public figures with authority among the population prone to protest managed to stop some of the actions of its participants, violating the norms of legal acts. “Such a course of events is likely in other actions of a similar nature,” the SSD said in an assessment.
It also notes that the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the spread of conspiracy theories about “universal control” in several Western countries, mistrust of institutions and protests against restrictions on public and private life.
The organizers of these spontaneously emerging protest movements do not usually seek to achieve their goals through illegal means, but the protests attempt to be exploited by non-influential but aggressive groups that incite social unrest. In peaceful mass protests, aggressive and extremist groups often seek to occupy the buildings of state institutions, ignore the legitimate demands of police officers, and provoke riots.
“Similar trends are registered in Lithuania. There are protests against the restrictions on the prevention of COVID-19, the Istanbul Convention, the initiative to pass a law to legalize same-sex couples, the accommodation of illegal immigrants and other issues relevant to Lithuanian society, ”it reads in the unclassified part of the reply sent to the municipal administration of the city of Vilnius. The answer also includes restricted information.
The SSD has also provided classified intelligence products earlier this year (March and May), informing the mayor of Vilnius about the formation of protest movements and the emergence of risks of social unrest.
According to its competence, the SSD collects and analyzes intelligence on attempts by unconstitutional groups and hostile foreign states to exploit the protest movement and cause social unrest. In cooperation with the Lithuanian police institutions, the SSD seeks to prevent unconstitutional activities, analyzes and predicts social processes that pose a threat to the national security of Lithuania.
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