Lithuania

VILNIUS, Feb 10 (Reuters) - A group of 35 countries, including the United States, Germany and Australia, will demand that Russian and Belarusian athletes are banned from the 2024 Olympics, the Lithuanian sports minister said on Friday, deepening the uncertainty over the Paris Games.

The move cranks up the pressure on an International Olympic Committee (IOC) that is desperate to avoid the sporting event being torn asunder by the bloody conflict unfolding in Ukraine.

VILNIUS, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Service said it believed Russia still had the strength to exert "credible military pressure" on the Baltic region, where the security risk has risen for the medium and long-term.

NATO and the European Union members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - the so-called Baltic states - have sharply boosted defence spending in response to Russia's 2014 capture of Crimea from Ukraine and the invasion of Ukraine last year.

VALAKELIAI, Lithuania (AP) — A powerful gas pipeline explosion that prompted the evacuation of a village in northern Lithuania was most likely caused by a technical malfunction, the head of the country’s natural gas transmission system said Saturday.

The blast Friday evening sent flames 50 meters (about 150 feet) into the sky. No casualties were reported but about 250 people were evacuated from the nearby village of Valakeliai as a precaution. The fire was extinguished by midnight and the residents returned to their homes on Saturday as repair work began on the damaged pipeline.

VILNIUS, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- LTG Cargo, the freight forwarding subsidiary of Lithuania's state-owned railway company Lietuvos Gelezinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways), has started transporting coal to Poland to help the neighboring country meet its demand for solid fuels, according to a press release issued on Monday.

The first freight train was on its way to Poland, the Baltic News Service (BNS) reported on Monday.

VILNIUS, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania's prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference on Thursday.

"My message is - we need to have patience. Because there are no sanctions that can switch Russia off overnight. It is not possible, we should not look for this," Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said.

VILNIUS, October 18. /TASS/: Deputies of Estonia's Riigikogu (unicameral parliament) on Tuesday declared Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, the national TV and radio broadcasting portal ERR reported.

RUKLA, Lithuania, Oct 8 (Reuters) - NATO must do more to protect itself against Russia and President Vladimir Putin, German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Saturday, because we "cannot know how far Putin's delusions of grandeur can go".

"One thing is certain: the current situation means we need to do more together," Lambrecht said while visiting German troops deployed in Lithuania.

VILNIUS, Aug 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Lithuania on Monday said it had finished building a fence along its border with Belarus to fight illegal immigration which the West accuses Minsk of orchestrating.

Illegal immigration has soared in EU member Lithuania this year, with around 4,200 migrants mainly from the Middle East and Africa crossing the border from neighbouring Belarus.

The West has accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime of manipulating the migrant flows with its ally Russia as part of “hybrid” warfare, which Minsk denies.

VILNIUS, August 11. /TASS/: The Estonian authorities have made a decision to ban Russian citizens with Estonia-issued Schengen visas from entering its territory, Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu told a government news briefing on Thursday.

"In a week from now the sanction will be applied to Schengen visas issued by Estonia. Visa holders from Russia will be subject to restrictions. They will be denied entry to Estonia," he said.

VILNIUS, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Latvia and Estonia withdrew from a cooperation group between China and over a dozen Central and Eastern European countries on Thursday, following in the footsteps of Baltic neighbour Lithuania which withdrew last year.

The move comes amid Western criticism towards China over escalating military pressure on democratically ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, and Beijing's strengthening of ties with Russia during the invasion of Ukraine.