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Russia calls on Lithuanian president not to spread fake news about operation in Ukraine

Gitanas Nauseda compared Russian society celebrating Victory Day to the Nazis of World War Two and justified his words by referring to the information, which has repeatedly been refuted by Russian official sources and the Western media

VILNIUS, May 11. /TASS/. Russia’s embassy in Vilnius has called on Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda not to spread fake news about the Russian military operation in Ukraine, the diplomatic mission said in a statement published on its website on Wednesday.

The embassy said that on May 9, which is celebrated as Victory Day across post-Soviet states, Nauseda "tried to shift the information focus from this sacred day to a more comfortable issue for him - Ukraine."

"In his address to Russian society celebrating Victory Day, he compared it [society] to the Nazis of World War Two. He justified his words by referring to information about the Russian Armed Forces’ actions in Ukraine, which has repeatedly been refuted by official sources in our country as well as by even the Western media," the statement says.

"We would suggest that instead of propagating Ukrainian ‘fake news’, Mr. Nauseda pay attention to the participation of Lithuanian troops in the adventure of a group of aggressor countries in Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed as a result of the actions of the United States and its accomplices, including Lithuanians," the embassy said in the statement.

On February 24, Putin announced a special military operation in Ukraine following a request for help from the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but the goal is demilitarization and denazification of that country.

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