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The Soviet Union re-occupied Lithuania and Joseph Stalin re-established the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1944 with its capital in Vilnius. [188] The Soviets secured the passive agreement of the United States and Great Britain (see Yalta Conference and Potsdam Agreement) to this annexation.
The Soviet Union threatened to invade, but the Russian SFSR's declaration of sovereignty on 12 June meant that the Soviet Union could not enforce Lithuania's retention. While other republics held the union-wide referendum in March to restructure the Soviet Union in a loose form , Lithuania, along with Estonia , Latvia , Armenia , Georgia , and ...
Lithuania, [b] officially the Republic of Lithuania, [c] is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. [d] It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and the Russian semi-exclave of Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest, with a maritime border with Sweden to the west.
At first, citizens of the Soviet Union and anyone with a visa for the Soviet Union automatically qualified for a visa upon arrival to Lithuania; later, the country instituted its own visa rules. [12] After the failed August Coup, Lithuanian independence recognition was reconfirmed by the United States on 2 September. [13]
Lithuania was the key to improved relationship with the Soviet Union. In exchange for Soviet recognition of Lithuania's claim to Vilnius, the countries signed a non-aggression pact in September 1926. [15] The situation appeared to be stable for the Baltic states. The Soviet Union was not a significant threat as Joseph Stalin ' s rise to power ...
The Estonian Supreme Soviet reserved the right to veto laws of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR even referred to Lithuania's independent past and its illegal annexation into the Soviet Union in 1940. The Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR was more cautious.
Some historians credit this victory for saving Lithuania's independence from the Soviet coup. [19] [21] During the interwar years, Lithuanian–Soviet relations were generally friendly, but, a few months after the outbreak of World War II, the Soviet Union decided to occupy the Baltic states, including Lithuania, in July 1940.
Just before the Union of Lublin (1569), four voivodeships (Kiev, Podlaskie, Bracław, and Wołyń) of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were transferred to the Polish Crown by direct order of Sigismund II Augustus while the Duchy of Livonia, acquired in 1561, became a condominium (joint domain) of both Lithuania and Poland. [2]