By Andrius Sytas
VILNIUS (Reuters) – A passport which was found during a search of Russian offices of mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was used by his double to enter Lithuania in 2020 in an attempt to foment a scandal, Lithuania’s counterintelligence service said on Wednesday.
Prigozhin flew into exile in Belarus on Tuesday under a deal that ended a mutiny by his fighters.
Russian media outlet Fontanka.ru on Sunday published pictures purportedly taken during a Russian security service raid of the headquarters of Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary group in St Petersburg on that day, including passports under his name. The pictures were later deleted.
A photo in one of the passports appears to match a picture released in 2021 by Lithuania’s counterintelligence State Security Department of a man said to have travelled under Prigozhin’s name.
“The passport, issued to Prigozhin’s double, was used in 2020 for an informational attack against Lithuania,” the security service said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
It said the aim was to undermine European solidarity, by making it seem as though Prigozhin himself had defied sanctions to visit EU member Lithuania. That the passport was found in Prigozhin’s office suggested Prigozhin himself was part of the plot.
“Lithuanian intelligence assesses that the document proves that the informational attack was executed by subjects controlled by Prigozhin, possibly in concert with the secret services of the Russia’s regime,” it said.
(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius)
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