Russian foreign minister pens foreword to book challenging Lithuanian statehood

A foreword written by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is raising concerns in Eastern Europe that Moscow is once again laying the groundwork to challenge a neighbor’s international borders. Lavrov’s preface appears in a monograph titled “The History of Lithuania,” published in March but only recently noticed by journalists. The book questions the existence of the Lithuanian language and the very statehood of modern-day Lithuania. 

Earlier this week, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys called the monograph a tool of Russian propaganda and likened its message to Vladimir Putin’s July 2021 essay, On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, in which the president rejected the foundations of Ukrainian sovereignty. (Days before ordering troops into Ukraine, Putin reiterated a key thesis from the essay, claiming that Vladimir Lenin invented the Ukrainian state.)

In his foreword, Lavrov accuses the Baltic states, including Lithuania, of trying to “use falsified historical narratives to incite anti-Russian and Russophobic sentiments.” The book, he says, pushes back against this trend.

The monograph, The History of Lithuania, was published in 2025 by the Moscow State Institute of International Relations’ publishing house. The lead author of the nine-member team was Maxim Grigoryev, head of the pro-Kremlin Foundation for the Study of Democracy Problems, a member of Russia’s Civic Chamber, and chair of the “International Public Tribunal on the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis.” Grigoryev is also a veteran of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“It is a tool for hostile activities against neighboring countries: to question statehood, history, values, symbols, but also to justify Russia’s imperialism and aggression against its neighbors,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Budrys told LRT Radio on April 30. “We have seen this before, we are seeing it now, and this is just another example.” LRT Radio journalists also reported that Grigoryev’s coauthors include Giedrius Grabauskas, a former associate of Lithuanian politician Algirdas Paleckis who was convicted in July 2021 of spying for Russia.

In the book’s chapter on Lithuania after its separation from the USSR, Grigoryev, Grabauskas, and their coauthors argue that the country today “officially considers itself the successor of the Lithuania of the pro-Nazi dictatorship” under Antanas Smetona. They also write that the “contemporary Lithuanian regime” embraces a “pro-Nazi” ideology and survives “largely” thanks to “police measures and the suppression of dissent.”