Sienos Grupė

The data is official, but the authorities do not make them public, well sort of... The State Border Guard Service only provides one day's data on its website and they chage values every day. This presentation of statistics is of little use. The State Data Agency does not publish this data.

The statistics on foreigners' pushbacks are virtually inflated. Cases of large groups of people being pushed back and forth between Lithuanian and Belarussian border are quite common. In those cases, the attempts to cross the border are recorded, hence if a group of 10 people tries to cross the border 5 times, the statistics will show 50 cases of pushbacks. In addition, according to the State Border Guard Service, there are cases where statistics include people who have been spotted close to the border on the Belarusian side, but have not even entered the territory of the Republic of Lithuania. This gives the impression that migration is much larger than in reality.

In the podcast NeRedaguota, the current head of the national trade union of border guards, Žygimantas Kalpokas, together with the former head Rimantas Liepa, “joked” when discussing the problems of collecting and accuracy of statistics: “I believe only in the statistics that I myself forged”.

* updated on 04.01.2025; data for 2024 is incomplete and is currently being updated. There were 1002 push-backs executed in 2024.