Lithuania checks citizens who may be associated with sanctioned russians

The Lithuanian Department of Migration has identified Lithuanians who are associated with individuals on the EU sanctions lists.

According to Gudzinskaite, the department's employees have to check thousands of people, and this work is planned to be completed in January.

"We are testing automated solutions. We cannot investigate cases, but we have narrowed the scope of the investigation - we check the data that is in our registers. If we determine from our registers that there are any connections, we will check these connections," the head of the department said.

She said she could not name the total number of such people in Lithuania.

"The investigation is not completed, so I cannot say exactly how many," said Gudzinskaitė.

According to the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs, as soon as the Migration Department determines how many relatives of persons subject to EU sanctions have Lithuanian citizenship, other institutions will be tasked with assessing whether they are involved in schemes to circumvent the above sanctions.

This check was initiated after it became clear that two children of russian billionaire Roman Abramovich have Lithuanian passports and may have helped their father circumvent international sanctions.

After that, the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that it was preparing proposals for amendments to the legislation that would allow deprivation of Lithuanian citizenship for reasons of national security.

Source: LRT