Famous Soviet-era dissidents - Sergei Kovalev and Tomas Venclova – and a Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov, a member of the State Duma Ilya Ponomarev, journalists Evgeny Kiselev, Masha Gessen, Mikhail Zygar, Artemy Troitsky, and Lilia Shevtsova were among the participants of the forum.
"Vilnius Russia Forum provides all of us with an opportunity to discuss the processes taking place in Russia, and to exchange views on how we can further develop ties with Russian democratic forces and society," said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius.
According to Lithuania's Foreign Minister, while maintaining a principled and critical approach towards the Kremlin's policy, we must make every effort to prevent the Russian people from deciding that we have turned our backs on them and that we have abandoned them.
"We shall always remember the support of Russia's civil society that we felt during the fatal days of January 1991. At that time, nearly a million Russian citizens took to the streets of Moscow to show solidarity with Lithuania and to support our freedom. Such discussions as this forum, our involvement in the dialogue with Russian civil society and efforts in support of democratic forces offer us the possibility to pay our debt to democratic Russia," said Linkevičius.
The participants of the forum also honoured the memory of Boris Nemtsov. The Russian politician was killed on 27 February 2015 in Moscow.
Vilnius Russia Forum was organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, in cooperation with the Eastern Europe Studies Centre and the International Elections Study Centre based in Vilnius.
The first two meetings of Vilnius Russia Forum were held in May 2014 and January 2015.
