Former paramedic of Lithuania's Armed Forces admits spying for Belarus


Andrei Oshurkov has pleaded guilty, his lawyer and relative Viktor Osurkov told journalists on Thursday after the first court hearing, DELFI reports.

Lithuania’s State Security Department said last December that Oshurkov was recruited by the Chief Intelligence Board of the Belarusian Armed Forces’ General Staff and infiltrated into the Lithuanian army to perform specific tasks.

He is suspected to have provided information for five years and received financial reward for his services.

On Thursday, Vilnius Regional Court’s jury of three judges planned to hear the case behind closed doors. Prosecutor Redas Savickas from the Prosecutor General’s Office told news agency BNS that when handing over the case to court he asked for it to be heard behind closed door due to the presence of classified documents in the case.

The Chief Intelligence Board of the Belarusian Armed Forces’ General Staff was interested in the military equipment, weaponry owned by units of the Lithuanian army, the function of buildings, Lithuania’s participation in NATO operations (missions), plans of standard operations, various military exercises, information about the number of people working for specific divisions and services, their names, personal characteristics and moral values, their agendas.

Prosecutors say the defendant collected information through communication with servicemen, observing, memorizing and, if possible, documenting by means of photographs or other ways, various documents and plans, writing down personal information about servicemen from official documents, including registration books or journals.

The suspect was born in 1986 and resides in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city. He has secondary education, is not married and had no previous convictions. He served as a paramedic at the Lithuanian Grand Duke Algirdas Mechanised Infantry Battalion.

The Belarusian KGB refused to comment on Oshurkov’s alleged spying.

‘We decline to comment,’ Artur Strekh, the KGB press officer, told news agency Interfax.

In November, charges have been brought against an employee of Lithuanian state company Oro Navigacija (Air Navigation), suspected of having spied for Belarus. Prosecutors said back then that a second person was still under investigation.

According to Prosecutor Petrauskas, the two cases were not related.

Belarus is spying in Lithuania both individually and is also acting as a proxy for Russia, claims prominent British journalist Edward Lucas, the author of a book on Russia’s spying.

www.belsat.eu/en/, following Delfi

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