A mass will be held at Vilnius Cathedral in the morning. Later, the traditional commemoration of the fallen will take place at the Medininkai memorial and Antakalnis cemetery.
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The events will be attended by President Gitanas Nausėda, Speaker of the Seimas Juozas Olekas, Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius, other state officials, military representatives, and representatives of foreign diplomatic corps.
On July 31, it will be 35 years since the early midsummer morning of 1991, when at the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, at the Medininkai post, the special Soviet Riga police unit (OMON) attackers assaulted border officers.
During the OMON attack, seven customs, police, and border officers were shot dead and one seriously wounded. Mindaugas Balavakas, Algimantas Juozakas, Juozas Janonis, Algirdas Kazlauskas, Antanas Musteikis, Stanislovas Orlavičius, and Ričardas Rabavičius were killed.
The life of the only seriously wounded customs officer, Tomas Šernas, was saved.
Former OMON policeman Konstantin Mikhailov was convicted for the Medininkai killings and is serving a life sentence.
Three other OMON members – Andrej Laktionov, Cheslav Mlynik, and Aleksandr Ryzhov – were sentenced in absentia by Lithuanian courts to the harshest punishment, as Russia refuses to extradite them.
We invite you to remember and honor the officers who sacrificed their lives defending Lithuania’s freedom and independence.
