| January Events Lithuanian: Sausio įvykiai |
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| Part of Cold War, Singing Revolution, and Dissolution of the Soviet Union | |||||||
 A man with a flag in front of a Soviet tank, January 13, 1991 |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Lithuania |
 Soviet Union
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 13 civilians killed 1 civilian died due to heart attack Around 140 injured |
1 KGB soldier (friendly fire) | ||||||
The January Events (Lithuanian: Sausio įvykiai) took place in Lithuania between January 11 and 13, 1991 in the aftermath of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. As a result of Soviet military actions, 13 civilians were killed and around 140 injured. The events were centered in its capital, Vilnius, along with related actions in its suburbs and in the cities of Alytus, Šiauliai, Varėna, and Kaunas.
After Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the German-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation in 1939, Lithuania was added to the Soviet Union's sphere of influence. In June 1940, the Red Army invaded Lithuania, creating the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. Between the years of 1941 and 1944 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. This caused the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic to be dissolved de facto. However, starting with the Baltic Offensive, Soviet rule was re-established in July 1944.
The Lithuanian Republic declared independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990, and thereafter underwent a difficult period of emergence. Economic and energy shortages undermined public faith in the newly restored state. The Soviet Union imposed an economic blockade between April and late June.
The inflation rate reached 100% and continued to increase rapidly. The fact that Lithuania had proclaimed independence unilaterally also caused discontent among the minorities of Russian and Polish descent, many of whom were supporters of the Moscow-backed branch of the Lithuanian Communist Party and the largely communist-dominated Yedinstvo movement.
Tension rose sharply in the early days of 1991. During the five days preceding the events, Russian, Polish, and other workers at Vilnius factories protested the government's consumer goods price hikes and what they saw as ethnic discrimination. (According to Human Rights Watch, the Soviet government had mounted a propaganda campaign designed to further ethnic strife).
On January 8, the conflict between Chairman of the Parliament Vytautas Landsbergis and the more pragmatic Prime Minister Kazimira Prunskienė culminated in her resignation. Prunskienė met with Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev on that day. He refused her request for assurances that military action would not be taken.
On January 8, the Yedinstvo movement organized a rally in front of the Supreme Council of Lithuania. Protesters tried to storm the parliament building, but were driven away by unarmed security forces using water cannons. Despite a Supreme Council vote the same day to halt price increases, the scale of protests and provocations backed by Jedinstvo (Unity, in Russian) and the Communist Party increased. During a radio and television address, Landsbergis called upon independence supporters to gather around and protect the main governmental and infrastructural buildings.
From January 8–9, several special Soviet military units were flown to Lithuania (including the famous counter terrorist Alpha Group and paratroopers of the 76th Airborne Division of the VDV based at Pskov). The official explanation was that this was needed to ensure constitutional order and the effectiveness of laws of the Lithuanian SSR and the Soviet Union.
On January 10, Gorbachev addressed the Supreme Council, demanding restoration of the constitution of the USSR in Lithuania and the revocation of all anti-constitutional laws. He mentioned that military intervention could be possible within days. When Lithuanian officials asked for Moscow's guarantee not to send armed troops, Gorbachev did not reply.
In the morning, Speaker of the Supreme Council Vytautas Landsbergis and Prime Minister Albertas Šimėnas were presented with another ultimatum from the "Democratic Congress of Lithuania" demanding that they comply with Gorbachev's request by 15:00 on January 11.
During an overnight session of the Supreme Council, Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis announced that he had tried to call Mikhail Gorbachev three times, but was unsuccessful. Deputy Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union, General Vladislav Achalov, arrived in Lithuania and took control of all military operations. People from all over Lithuania started to encircle the main strategic buildings: the Supreme Council, the Radio and Television Committee, the Vilnius TV Tower and the main telephone exchange.
Following these two attacks, large crowds (20,000 during the night, more than 50,000 in the morning) of independence supporters gathered around the Supreme Council building. People started building anti-tank barricades and setting up defenses inside surrounding buildings. Provisional chapels were set up inside and outside the Supreme Council building. Members of the crowd prayed, sang and shouted pro-independence slogans. Despite columns of military trucks, BMPs and tanks moving into the vicinity of the Supreme Council, Soviet military forces retreated instead of attacking.
The events of January 13 are sometimes referred to as Bloody Sunday.
In all, thirteen Lithuanians were killed by the Soviet army. An additional civilian died at the scene due to a heart attack, and one Soviet soldier was killed by friendly fire. All victims, except the soldier, were awarded the Order of the Cross of Vytis (the Knight) on January 15, 1991.
Immediately after the attacks, the Supreme Council issued a letter to the people of the Soviet Union and to the rest of the world denouncing the attacks and calling for foreign governments to recognise that the Soviet Union had committed an act of aggression against a sovereign nation. Following the first news reports from Lithuania, the government of Norway appealed to the United Nations. The government of Poland expressed their solidarity with the people of Lithuania and denounced the actions of the Soviet army.
After the events, President Gorbachev said Lithuanian "workers and intellectuals" complaining of anti-Soviet broadcasts had tried to talk to the republic's parliament, but were refused and beaten. Then, he said, they asked the military commander in Vilnius to provide protection. Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, Interior Minister Boris Pugo and Gorbachev all asserted that no one in Moscow gave orders to use force in Vilnius. Yazov said that nationalists were trying to form what he called a bourgeois dictatorship. Pugo said on national television that the demonstrators had opened fire first.
During the following day, meetings of support took place in many cities (Kiev, Riga, Tallinn).
Although occupation and military raids continued for several months following the attacks, there were no large open military encounters after January 13. Strong Western reaction and the actions of Russian democratic forces put the President and the government of the Soviet Union in an awkward position. This influenced future Lithuanian-Russian negotiations and resulted in the signing of a treaty on January 31.
During a visit by the official delegation of Iceland to Lithuania on January 20, Foreign Minister Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson said: "My government is seriously considering the possibility of establishing diplomatic relations with the Republic of Lithuania." Iceland kept its promise, and on February 4, 1991, just three weeks after the attacks, it recognized the Republic of Lithuania as a sovereign independent state, and diplomatic relations were established between the two nations.
These events are considered some of the main factors that led to the overwhelming victory of independence supporters in a referendum on February 9, 1991. (Turnout was 84.73% of registered voters; 90.47% of them voted in favor of the full and total independence of Lithuania.)
Streets in the neighborhood of the TV tower were later renamed after victims of the attack.
Russia still claims that the Soviet troops did not use their weapons at all.
In 1996 two members of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Lithuanian SSR were sentenced to time in jail, Mykolas Burokevičius and Juozas Jermalavičius. In 1999 the Vilnius District Court sentenced six former Soviet military men who participated in the events. On May 11, 2011, a soldier of the Soviet OMON Konstantin Mikhailov was sentenced to lifetime in prison for killing customs workers and policemen in 1991 at the border checkpoint with Byelorussian SSR "Medininkai" near the village of Medininkai (see Soviet aggression against Lithuania in 1990).
Since 1992, representatives of the Prosecutor General Office of Lithuania requested Belarus to extradite Vladimir Uskhopchik, a former general who was in command of the Vilnius garrison in January 1991 and the editor of the newspaper "Soviet Lithuania" Stanislava Juonene. Lithuania's request has constantly been denied. According to the Prosecutor General Office of Lithuania, during the entire period of investigation of the case, 94 requests for legal assistance were sent to Russia, Belarus, and Germany but received only negative responses.
In July 2011, diplomatic tensions rose between Austria and Lithuania when Mikhail Golovatov, an ex-KGB general who took part in the January 13, 1991 massacre, was released after being detained at the Vienna Airport. He then proceeded to fly to Russia. In response, Lithuania recalled its ambassador from Austria.
The Russian Federation refused to question the former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev on petition of the Lithuanian prosecutors in connection with the January events of 1991.
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