However, the MPs who did not vote in favour of extending the sanctions have now come forward to justify themselves and have already shared their explanations on Facebook. They say that while they do support Ukraine, they have reservations about the draft law. However, some commentators are not convinced even by this.
Robertas Puchovičius of Nemuno Aušra, Valius Ąžuolas of the Peasants' Party and Ignas Vėgėlė and Rimas Jonas Jankūnas of their joint group voted against the extension of sanctions against Russia.
The abstentions were made by Nemuno Aušra members Remigijus Žemaitaitis, Aidas Gedvilas, Artūras Skardžius, Lina Šukytė-Korsakė, Daiva Žebelienė, Dainoras Bradauskas, Tomáš Domarkas, Martynas Gedvilas, Vytautas Jucius, Petras Dargis, Dainius Varnas, as well as by the members of the joint faction of the LVŽS and the Union of Christian Families, Bronis Ropė, Eimantas Kirkutis, and Česlav Olševski.
After the vote in the Seimas, people started to share a table with photos of all 18 MPs on Facebook. They ironically referred to the politicians as „brown heroes“ and asked to remember their faces.
The first to put out the fire was LVŽS. The party's board said on Saturday that the Seimas Peasants' vote against further extending sanctions against Russia was a reckless and inappropriate political decision.
„There is and can be no justification for Russia's aggression in Ukraine. Sanctions against an aggressor, even if all other states do not support them, are an important way of showing our state's attitude towards the aggressor state,“ LVŽS President Aurelijus Veryga said in a statement.
On Saturday, the LVŽS Board agreed that members of the party's group in the Seimas would submit proposals for a draft law abolishing the validity period of sanctions and imposing sanctions for an unlimited period. In parallel, proposals will be made to apply the same sanctions to Russia and Belarus.
Soon after, other parliamentarians who did not support the draft started to justify themselves on social networks. Some Nemuno Aušra members copied and posted the exact agreed text on their profiles.
„ Nemuno Aušra has always supported and will continue to support Ukraine. We are and will be against any war or aggression against any country. Our principled position is clear – we support Ukraine's freedom struggle and condemn Russia's military aggression,“ said the Deputy Elder of the Nemuno Aušra faction, Puchovičius.
„We have received a lot of negative comments about our last vote in the Seimas. We want to explain our position clearly and openly. We did not vote against sanctions, and we did not vote against fighting the aggressor. Our vote was against additional unilateral restrictions not imposed by the European Union or our neighbours, Latvia or Poland.
As a result, the transit of goods simply bypasses Lithuania, leaving our country with economic loss and stupidity. If these restrictions are agreed upon with our neighbours and partners, we will always support a common, united, and effective position that will contribute to the fight against aggression,“ wrote Puchovičius.
He also said the group apologises to those „who may have been misled by misinformation“.
„We are aware that in the information space, sometimes facts are consciously or unconsciously distorted, and the aim is to antagonise the public. That is why we want to assure you that we stand for Ukraine, for peace and against aggression in any country in the world,“ Puchovičius said.
Vėgėlė, who works in the ranks of the LVŽS, also announced his position and called for „stopping the troll attack.“
„All European Union sanctions against Russia are directly applicable in Lithuania, and Lithuania has repeatedly amended its legislation to make these sanctions effective. This week, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Budrys, presented in the Seimas, in addition to the already introduced European Union sanctions, our national sanctions against Russia.
Knowing the provocations that the government likes (the Kaliningrad transit, the Taiwanese embassy and others), we asked whether these national sanctions would not cause disproportionate damage to Lithuania. That is to say, whether these sanctions include trade sanctions that Russia can particularly easily circumvent by importing goods not to Lithuania but to our neighbours, Latvia or Poland, or to other EU countries.
In this way, the goods would enter the European Union and could circulate in the single European market, bypassing Lithuania. The sanctions may be for Russia, but the real damage is to the Lithuanian economy. In response, the Minister was untruthful when he said these national sanctions would only touch individuals.
The draft law identifies some of the sanctions he proposes on Russian goods. As I have already written, Russia can very easily circumvent such sanctions by importing goods into the European Union's common market via other EU countries. This was followed by the usual troll attacks: „Those who voted against the Minister's lies do not love Ukraine and are serving Russia. Lithuania continues to live in troll bubbles and government lies,“ said Vėgėlė.
Other members of the Seimas who did not support the bill modestly shared on Facebook the positions of their colleagues that had already been broadcast, while some members of Nemuno Aušra shared the video posted by Vėgėlė rather than the position of their own group. Even then, the MPs did not escape criticism.
„You are a traitor to Lithuania,“ „First he does, and then he thinks what he has done,“ and „Shame,“ for example, were the comments of people in the video by the Peasant MP Kirkutis.