# Lithuania > [!info] Gateway page > One of the fifteen former Soviet republics compared at [[Post-Soviet States]]. **Lithuania** was the first Soviet republic to declare its independence restored — on 11 March 1990, a year and a half before the USSR dissolved — and is now the frontline host of a permanently stationed German armoured brigade. Its exposure is less to [[Russia]] directly than to [[Belarus]], which borders it on the east and south. | Item | Detail | |---|---| | Independence | Restoration declared 11 March 1990; recognized by the USSR 6 September 1991 | | Head of state | President Gitanas Nausėda | | Head of government | Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius (Social Democrat), approved 30 June 2026; cabinet approved 14 July 2026 | | Blocs | NATO and EU (2004); never in the CIS, CSTO or [[Eurasian Economic Union]] | | Russian forces | None — withdrawn 31 August 1993, the first Baltic state cleared | | Allied forces | [[Germany]]'s 45th Panzer Brigade, inaugurated in Vilnius 22 May 2025, building to about 4,800 troops by end-2027 | | Population | About 2.89 million (start of 2025) | ## Where it stands with Moscow - **The balloon campaign.** Smuggling balloons launched from Belarus closed Vilnius airport repeatedly from October 2025 — more than 600 incidents that year. Lithuania briefly closed the Belarus border, Belarus held Lithuanian trucks on its side (counts differ widely between sources), and on 9 December 2025 Lithuania declared a nationwide state of emergency. - **The German brigade.** Its main base at Rūdninkai sits about 30 km from the Belarus border. In September 2026 Germany began ordering soldiers to the brigade because too few volunteered. - **Spillover.** A stray Ukrainian drone crashed in Varėna district on 23 March 2026; two more in mid-May prompted a public shelter alert. - **Off the Russian grid** with [[Estonia]] and [[Latvia]] on 8 February 2025. ## The 2026 government change Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė resigned on 23 June 2026 after her Social Democrats dropped the far-right Nemuno Aušra ("Dawn of the Nemunas") party from the coalition over antisemitic remarks by its former leader. Sinkevičius heads the term's third Social Democratic cabinet. Its stated line is to keep isolating Belarus while normalizing relations with [[China]] — a softening toward Beijing, not toward Moscow. ## The Disinfo2026 episode (October 2026) In October 2026 Lithuania's foreign ministry withdrew its support for EU DisinfoLab's conference in Vilnius after the US State Department raised concerns about a panel on the United States as a source of foreign information manipulation. Canada and the EU's diplomatic service did the same. See [[Disinfo2026 Conference]]. ## See Also - [[Post-Soviet States]] — all fifteen former republics compared - [[Belarus]] - [[Estonia]] - [[Latvia]] - [[Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth]] — the early-modern union that shaped the region's borders