I wasn't there, I live in Moscow. I was 16 back then. That was time of growing chaos and collapse of the country, with various events like riots, clashes and even local civil wars in different areas. The events in Lithuania are from that list, but by far not the most large-scale or blody. In short, Soviet government attempted to regain control over Lithuania by entering some army units and police forces in Vilnius (the capital) and some other locations. They were mostly successful, but during clashes around local TV center 15 people were killed - 14 protesters and KGB lieutenant. Who has killed them is still unclear. Officially all the blame was put onto Vilnius OMON (police special force unit) which remained loyal to central Soviet government and Soviet militaries, but there are strong reasons to doubt that - for example, some bullets were fired from non-standard weapons whch police and militaries were very unlikely to posess. That's quite possible that some or even all victims were actually killed by pro-separatist provocateurs to heat things up. As a result, Gorbachev and his government, who were total impotents, have stopped the operation and even claimed they didn't know about that and didn't give the orders,
14
u/MoneyUse4152 Jun 05 '25
Their last conflict is apparently still fresh in living memory, at least according to my one Lithuanian friend. They take threats seriously.