Gorbachev denies asking for cash in exchange for Lithuanian independence

The Baltic Times reported last week that recently declassified Swedish diplomatic reports contain allegations that Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev asked that Lithuania pay the USSR $21 billion rubles to regain the independence it lost in fifty years earlier. Part of the deal, which Gorbachev flatly denies, would attach the Lithuanian port city of Klaipėda to the Russian Kaliningrad enclave.

Gorbachev told the Russian news agency Interfax, "This is not serious. This is an extremely free interpretation of the events that took place when Lithuania decided to secede from the USSR. There was no bargaining."

Lithuania, along with Latvia and Estonia, became independendent in 1991, a year after the alleged payoff request. Four months later the Soviet Union collapsed.

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