Lithuania accuses Kremlin of "inflaming passions"

The head of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry Gabrielius Landsbergis accused the Kremlin of "inflaming passions".

He made the remarks while commenting on the arrest in absentia of three Lithuanian judges who sentenced more than 50 Russians over the 1991 Vilnius riots, BNS news agency reports.

"Russia has already repeatedly used this case in its propaganda ... Therefore, the absentee verdict to the three judges is another inflaming of passions of the Kremlin regime, which once again confirms that the trial and the decision on the case ... in our country was legitimate," - said the head of Lithuanian diplomacy.

In March, it was reported that retired colonel Yuri Mel, convicted in Lithuania nine years ago, had returned to Russia. Mel was detained in March 2014 while crossing the Lithuanian border. The investigation claimed that the officer had stormed the TV tower and the television committee building during the "January events" in Vilnius in 1991.

The events in Vilnius caused a wide resonance abroad. The United States, Canada, Germany, France, Great Britain and other countries, including those from Eastern Europe, protested against the actions of the government of the first and last president of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev in the Baltics. The decisions, that had already been taken to grant the USSR loans and financial aid totalling $16 billion, were frozen.