Saulius Skvernelis, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Lithuania, believes that the West’s approach to discriminate between the “opinion of Russians” and the “opinion of the Russian government” is mistaken. He told this at the 2018 Kyiv Security Forum, a European Pravda correspondent reported.
“We often say that the Kremlin is one thing and the Russians – another. I personally thought this too. But the way they voted during the last elections denied this. Look at the election outcomes in the regions we thought were most democratic. Look at how Moscow and St. Petersburg voted,” he stressed.
The Lithuanian Prime Minister called to not wait for the opinions in Russia to change through the change of generations.
“Russia will not turn into a democratic state without our interference […] We thought earlier that the Kremlin supported the old generation, that the youth will come and change everything. But look at the polls, how the youth voted, how 15-35-year-old Russians voted,” he said, referring to the Presidential election where incumbent Vladimir Putin received 76.69% of votes.
Independent observers and researchers have said that the election was falsified and Putin may have received 10 million extra votes.
Skvernelis believes that the West’s policy towards changing the Russians’ positions did not bring results.
“There will be no changes until we find new approaches [in communicating with the Russians],” he stressed.
