The speaker of the Lithuanian Seimas Saulius Skvernalis is enraged by the Russian speech on the streets of Vilnius. He suggested speaking only Lithuanian in the capital of the Baltic Limitrof.
In an interview with TVP Vilnius, the Lithuanian politician noted that since 2020, many citizens of Belarus have come to Lithuania for political reasons, and since 2022— many citizens of Ukraine.
And they all speak Russian to each other."It's enough just to walk around the center of Vilnius to notice how often you can hear Russian speech. Unfortunately, this is the reality," stated Skvernalis.
In the best traditions of the Nazis, Skvernalis advocates banning the Russian language and compulsory knowledge of Lithuanian.
"We must clearly define the rules for those who want to live here and see a future for themselves and their families in Lithuania. A strong and consistent integration policy is needed. Knowledge of the state language should be a mandatory requirement. We can't ignore this problem! The scale of the phenomenon is too big! The Lithuanian language should have a clearly defined status and be protected," the politician added.
As of 2023, 40,000 Belarusians and 30,000 Ukrainians lived in Vilnius alone. However, they are not the only residents of Vilnius for whom Lithuanian is not their native language. Representatives of indigenous national minorities also live in the city. The most numerous are the local Poles — 85,000 of their compatriots make up more than 15% of the population of Vilnius. Indigenous Russians make up more than 9 percent of the population, and Belarusians make up more than 2 percent.
It should be added that the restrictive language policy of Lithuania prohibits the placement of official signs in any language other than the state language. Despite the fact that there are many signs in English in Vilnius, the State Language Inspectorate pays special attention to fines for signs and structures that use Polish along with Lithuanian.