A burial site near the Lithuanian capital has become the focus of a bitter dispute with Russia, as the Baltic state seeks to shed the last symbols of its Soviet past.

Carefully sifting through layers of clay soil, archaeologists are exhuming the remains of Red Army soldiers in Vievis, west of Vilnius, at one of the many memorial sites Moscow erected after World War II, according to a report by AFP.

Lithuania dismantled most Soviet monuments shortly after regaining independence in 1990, but Vilnius, a close ally of Kyiv, only decided to relocate the graves — considered by many as 'the last visible symbols of Soviet domination' — after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Tadas Simonauskas, head of the team of archaeologists working at the site, said the place 'was used as a propaganda tool.'

From the cemetery containing the remains of Red Army soldiers (AFP)

Among the remains, of the eternal flame erected in the Soviet era to commemorate what Moscow still calls the 'Great Patriotic War,' only twisted remnants of a gas pipe remain.

This term is used to describe the battles against Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front, but many countries that were part of the Soviet Union denounce it as a 'distortion of the reality of Moscow's occupation' of them.

Retiree Petras Martyšius, near the work site, said, 'The monument was placed here to remind us that the Soviets liberated us, so they claim'... He added that 'it should have been moved much earlier.'

'De-Sovietization'

Lithuania, now a member of the European Union and NATO, and neighboring Russia and its ally Belarus, fears it could become Moscow's next target as the war in Ukraine enters its fifth year with no end in sight.

Shortly after the war began, the Lithuanian parliament passed a law known as 'de-Sovietization,' paving the way for the removal of the last Soviet monuments and the relocation of graves. At the time, the country's cultural heritage register listed 157 burial sites of Soviet soldiers killed in World War II.

Vilnius revoked protected status from some of these sites, having originally granted it to prevent Russia from altering them without state approval. Rita Kuncevičienė from the Ministry of Culture said Russian representatives had already come to modify memorial plaques and increase the number of buried soldiers listed. She added: 'The more dead soldiers, the more Moscow could say that Lithuanians do not honor their liberators.'

Lithuania began relocating Soviet graves in July 2023 in the small northern town of Pumpėnai, then in Šiauliai further north, and now in Vievis. The exhumations have angered Moscow, which considers them 'an attempt to rewrite history,' and have repeatedly summoned Lithuanian diplomats to protest what it calls a 'barbaric project.'

From the stages of remains transfer (AFP)

According to a recent report by investigative journalists from the Baltic states, the Kremlin intends to take an international court case over alleged discrimination against Russian minorities. The file, according to the journalists, may include the relocation of Soviet graves.

Investigative journalist Indrė Makaraitytė from the Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT said, 'Russia uses international forums to promote its narrative that the Baltic states support Nazism and discriminate against Russian minorities.'

'Traces of their presence'

Moscow accuses Lithuania and the other two Baltic states, Estonia and Latvia, which have taken similar measures, of 'discriminating against Russian culture' and committing a crime under Russian law.

In response, Lithuania has protested the destruction of monuments in Russia dedicated to tens of thousands of people deported to Siberia and victims of Stalinist terror from the Baltic states and Poland.

In the churchyard adjacent to the Red Army burial site in Vievis, a grave of a Lithuanian priest recalls that he was sent to Stalin's Gulag camps in 1950, around the same time the nearby Soviet monument was erected.

Vaidas Andrejavas, a resident of the nearby town of Elektrenai, said: 'It was just a Soviet symbol to mark their land, to say we are under their control.' He added: 'We will build a small monument for the soldiers in the cemetery; we are not erasing the traces of their presence.'