FOR several years after Lithuania was annexed by the USSR in World War II, thousands of so-called “forest brothers” waged a guerilla war against the Communist invaders.

Based on the fact that Lithuania remained Soviet Russian-occupied for half a century, it may be thought that the resistance, brave as it was, was ultimately futile.

Yet the deeds of the forest brothers have not been forgotten as a trip through the Lithuanian countryside confirms.

Every so often you come across an official sign on the road indicating that a significant battle against Soviet forces took place at a nearby site.

Until relatively recently, these sites marked with plaques to honour the anti-Communist fighters were mainly of historical interest. But they have taken on a certain resonance as Lithuanians contemplate a fresh threat from Russia hot on the heels of its intervention in eastern Ukraine.

On a recent visit to Lithuania, the homeland of my parents, I was struck by the depth of anxiety about Russia’s intentions. This is despite Lithuania and its fellow Baltic republics of Estonia and Latvia being members of the European Union and the Western military alliance NATO.

Flying into the capital Vilnius from Germany, engineer Vytautas Kairionis summed up feelings in the region.

“Russia is intervening in Ukraine first and we hope that we won’t be next, but we have to be ready,” he said. “There will be some sort of attempt for sure. Maybe not over the next year but over the next few years.

“Everyone is worried, everyone has a Plan B, but so far no one is seriously contemplating it.”

While the chances of an imminent Russian incursion appear slim, people are unsettled by ominous signs coming from their big neighbour to the east. Russia recently sent Lithuania a diplomatic note demanding that the Government track down the culprits who defaced a Soviet war memorial in Lithuania with an image of a Ukrainian flag.

This sort of demand evokes memories of the destabilisation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union in the lead-up to the country’s forced incorporation into the USSR in 1940. There followed a brutal repression, including the murder of innocent civilians and the deportation of tens of thousands of people to Siberian labour camps, from which many never returned.

Arturas Paulauskas, the Lithuanian Parliament’s national security and defence committee chairman, said there was good reason for his country to once again feel threatened by renewed Russian aggression in the region.

“Now occurring is an intensive propaganda and cyber war, and we see every day that Russia is trying to consolidate and unify the Russian-speaking community here,” he told the Herald Sun.

“It doesn’t want non-Lithuanians living here to integrate into mainstream society, it wants them to be oppositional and under its influence.”

Mr Paulauskas pointed to a Russian military build-up in the Kaliningrad region which borders Lithuania as evidence of President Vladimir Putin’s scare tactics.

“We’re not overdramatising the situation — a sober analysis shows that the threat is there, and it’s growing,” he said.

“Everything that’s happening shows that the seemingly peaceful situation here is quite fragile.”

Lithuania abolished compulsory military service some years ago, but the current political situation has sparked a flood of volunteers joining the homeguard organisation Sauliu Sajunga.

Prof Benediktas Juodka, the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee chairman, said that his own son, a lawyer, had signed up.

“He goes every weekend into the bush, stays overnight and does I’m not sure what there,” he said.

“I’m very impressed by this wave of patriotism, which is being driven by educated and professional young people. It shows that whatever happens we will defend our homeland.”

Lithuania, a country of only three million, has security guarantees on the basis of its NATO membership, with US President Barack Obama recently reaffirming the pledge to the Baltic States during a morale-boosting visit to the Estonian capital Tallinn.

NATO has stepped up operations in the region, including the extended deployment of fighter jets as a show of force. But Lithuanians are only too aware that ultimately, they must be responsible for their own defence.

Mr Paulauskas, who temporarily served as the nation’s president during a political crisis in 2004, said there was no doubt that help would come in the face of Russian aggression.

“But we have to be prepared to defend ourselves,” he said.

Mr Juodka said that NATO had “gone to sleep” after the Cold War, but the Ukraine conflict had reinvigorated the organisation.

“Nowhere in the world is 100 per cent safe, but after the Ukrainian tragedy I think that Europe has realised the need to strengthen its defences,” he said.

Hopefully, Vytautas Kairionis will not have to execute his Plan B, which involves heading straight for the Polish border in the event of a Russian invasion.

Millions of his countrymen are also clinging to that hope.

john.masanauskas@news.com.au