Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) will open its first office in Vilnius on Tuesday.
The new bureau will host displaced journalists from Belarus who were forced to flee following the country's fraudulent 2020 election, as well as a new reporting team from the Russian-language service Current Time.
The broadcaster, funded by the US government, was forced to relocate from Russia after its office was closed by the authorities.
In December, 2021, RFE/RL was declared an "extremist organisation" in Belarus and the distribution and use of its news reports became a criminal offense. Two journalists from the Belarusian service, Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk, remain unlawfully imprisoned.
Later this week, RFE/RL will also open an office in Riga, Latvia, which will act as a Russian-language media centre for fighting Russian propaganda.
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