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‘Lithuania Spends Nearly Half a Million Euros per Month on Tsikhanouskaya.’ MP Klishevich False Claim Fact-Checked
Sergei Klishevich spoke about Lithuania's expenses for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Graffiti messages have appeared on Vilnius city walls, demanding that exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya "get out of our city" in Lithuanian. A Belarusian parliamentarian Klishevich claims this reflects Lithuanian animosity for a monthly €500,000 government spend for Tsikhanouskaya.
The Weekly Top Fake team questioned these budget allegations and revealed the truth.
Sergei Klishevich spoke about Lithuania's expenses for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on August 2nd, 2024, in Grigory Azarenok’s live broadcast.
“Here are our sanctions, if you will, against the Lithuanian government. They spend four hundred thousand euros on her every month, which could have been spent on schools, hospitals, and clinics for their own Lithuanian people,” Klishchevich said.
This amount is likely a reference to a 2021 post by a Lithuanian Seimas deputy, who claimed that the Lithuanian government spends €35,000 per month on Tsikhanouskaya. That would be €400,000 per year, not per month. Thus, Klishevich's calculations were off by 11.5 times.
Back then, nobody confirmed this amount. Officially, the budget for Tsikhanouskaya's entire office for the entire year was €180,000.
