Bilotaitė says grounds were sought to remove Liubajevas

Former Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė has questioned the decision by Interior Minister Martynas Katelynas to accept the resignation of Rustamas Liubajevas as head of Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service, LRT reported on Monday.

Bilotaitė, a conservative politician, said the decision by the Social Democrat minister was difficult to understand. She said it had appeared from the start of the tensions that Katelynas wanted to replace Liubajevas, while the minister had said he only wanted to improve processes at the institution.

“The pretext and the message were clear,” Bilotaitė said.

She said it would not be easy to find a replacement for Liubajevas, who had led the border guard service for seven years and worked in the border protection system for almost two decades. She also questioned the decision to change its head at a difficult time, saying Belarus was still organising migration to the European Union in cooperation with people smugglers and artificially creating migrant flows towards Lithuania.

Bilotaitė criticised the fact that the State Border Guard Service would be left without a permanent head and recalled that Minsk was suspected of carrying out new provocations linked to the border.

“The decision raises many questions. Even if there is a desire to appoint ‘one’s own person’, national security issues must also be considered. I do not think this is a responsible or statesmanlike decision. It looks more like a desire to have a leader who is favourable and convenient,” the former minister said.

She added that she had not heard serious reasons why Liubajevas should resign.

Liubajevas came under criticism earlier this month after media reports said border guards may have been attacked in an ambush near the border with Belarus. Katelynas, who had been minister for several weeks at the time, said he had not been informed about the incident and ordered an official investigation.

Bilotaitė said conflict situations occurred regularly at the border and noted that the interior minister was responsible for other statutory officials, not only the border guard service.

She said working with Liubajevas had been easy, including when Lithuania radically changed its migration policy after the migration crisis began in 2021. At that time, border guards stopped admitting migrants at the border and returned those who arrived to Belarus.

“Given the kind of confrontations taking place at the border, there must be a clear agreement. The areas of responsibility are broad: the police and other institutions are involved, and events take place every day. There are various incidents every day. Apparently, the goal was different, and grounds were probably sought and found,” Bilotaitė said.