Is Lithuania completely sealing the Belarusian border? No, that's not true: The Lithuanian government decided to temporarily close two of its six border crossings, Tverecius and Sumskas, as of August 18, 2023, in response to PMC Wagner's move to Belarus.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) where it was published on TikTok on August 16, 2023, under the title "NATO is a purely defensive bloc" (translate from Russian to English by Lead Stories staff). The video began by showing a clip of TikToker @solomon.belarus saying:
The Baltic states and Poland are so "not tense" about the presence of PMC Wagner on the Belarussian territory, that from today Lithuania completely closes the border with Belarus, fearing threats to national security.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Aug 18 11:11:25 2023 UTC)
Amidst tensions arising from the presence of the Russian mercenary group Wagner in the Eastern European country, the Lithuanian government declared on August 16, 2023, the temporary closure of two out of its six border crossings with Belarus. Commencing August 18, 2023, the operations of the Tverecius and Sumskas checkpoints along the Lithuanian-Belarusian border have been temporarily suspended.
Regarding this shutdown, Agne Bilotaite, the Interior Minister of Lithuania, stated:
It will enable border officers to redistribute their capacities at the border with Belarus and pay even larger attention to the protection of the state border.
The Lithuanian authorities have not yet discussed a complete closure of the Lithuania-Belarus border.
