Lithuania follows Poland in proposing to rename Kaliningrad 

According to the Kauno Diena report, conservative MPs Vilius Semeška and Paulė Kuzmickienė believe that the current name belongs to the Russian narrative and arose during the aggressive actions of the Soviet Union during World War II.

"The region of the Soviet Union was named after the old Bolshevik revolutionary Mikhail Kalinin. After Kalinin's death, several cities were renamed in his honour. One of them - then Königsberg, now Kaliningrad - has retained this name to this day," the politicians emphasised.

In their opinion, in the context of the war in Ukraine, it is necessary to reconsider the names and abandon the use of names that are alien to the Lithuanian language.

"It's high time to abandon the Soviet heritage and not to pollute our state language with foreign terms. We stand in solidarity with our Polish neighbours and invite you not to use artificial names imposed on us in the Lithuanian language," Semeška said.

• On May 10, Poland changed the names of Kaliningrad and Kaliningrad Oblast. The Kremlin claims that it is Russophobia that "borders on insanity."