Lithuania: Prepare to Survive Emergencies and War (2015)

Prepare to Survive Emergencies and War: A Cheerful Take on Serious Recommendations is the second edition of Lithuania’s household civil-defence manual, published in Vilnius in 2015 by the Ministry of National Defence. It carries roughly thirty points of practical guidance, it runs from kitchen supplies through to conduct under military occupation, and it ends with the rank and insignia tables of the Lithuanian Armed Forces so that readers can tell a Lithuanian soldier from anyone else in uniform. The Resistance Hub hosts the English edition in full.

What this document is

The foreword explains what changed between editions. The first edition drew written comments and public criticism, and the ministry responded by cutting it: “It offers only applicable practical advice and relevant information so it is shorter and smaller in format, plus it has expressive illustrations.” The result is a manual with almost no framing prose. Each section is a heading followed by a list of bullet points, each bullet an instruction. It is designed to be recalled under stress, which is why the illustrations exist and why the minister says they will “help you recall the behaviour we recommend or discourage in specific situations”.

The first third is ordinary emergency preparedness done thoroughly. Discuss the worst cases with your family and agree two rendezvous points, one outdoors and one at the home of somebody you trust. Locate the nearest collective protection building, marked with a blue equilateral triangle in an orange square. Keep at least three litres of water per family member and three days of imperishable food. Convert a basement into a shelter, with a concrete ceiling, sandbagged windows, a vented stove, a wooden floor for warmth, a forty litre water barrel and a planned second exit.

The middle covers hazards that are not specific to war: chemical and radiological release, iodide prophylaxis with dosages given by age group down to newborns, decontamination on returning home, suspicious objects, detonations, being trapped under rubble, crowd crush, and the sequence for re-entering a damaged building. The rubble section is unusually operational, telling the reader that rescuers pause their equipment hourly for a ten minute silence so that calls for help can be heard.

From page 33 the register changes. Mobilisation is explained: who is a conscript, at what ages, which reservists report where, and the addresses and telephone numbers of all thirteen military conscription and manning centres. Then comes the wartime sequence, in order: what to do about unidentified armed groups, air alarm, hostile forces arriving in your area, small-arms fire nearby, self-evacuation from a war zone, survival in seized territory, and document checks by enemy soldiers. The advice is specific and unsentimental. Do not wear camouflage colours. Make five small bundles rather than one large suitcase. Travel only in daylight. Do not pick up a weapon you find, because it may be mined or set as bait.

The final substantive section is on civil resistance under occupation, and it is the reason this document matters beyond its own borders. It instructs non-cooperation with the occupation authority and with collaborators, refusal to attend organised events, direct address to enemy soldiers to separate them from their commanders’ propaganda, transmission of evidence to international media, use of social media and mobile networks to circulate accurate information, cyber operations against the aggressor’s systems where connectivity survives, and aid to those hit by reprisals. A 2015 government publication telling its own citizens how to resist an occupation is a rare object, and this one does it in one page of bullet points.

The closing twelve pages are reference plates: rank insignia for the Land Force, Air Force and Navy, unit and institutional insignia across the National Defence System, and the civil protection marking. The stated purpose is identification. The guide tells readers that a Lithuanian soldier in field uniform carries the national tricolour on the right sleeve and a unit shield on the left, wears a rank ribbon at the centre of the chest, must carry a metal identity token that a civilian may ask to see, and is required to speak Lithuanian and to give a full name and unit on request. That list exists because uniforms without insignia had become a live problem in the region by 2015.

Contents

Provenance and lineage

The imprint page names the production team in full: managing editor Dr. Karolis Aleksa, illustrations by Ilja Bereznickas, language editor Renata Alauskaitė-Mikalainienė, layout by Aida Janonytė and Violeta Pikčiūnaitė, translation by Skirmantė Andrašiūtė. The foreword is signed by Juozas Olekas as Minister of National Defence. The document states that it is the product of cooperation between experts of the National Defence System and the Civil Protection Training Centre of the Fire Fighters School.

It is explicitly a second edition, and it explains its own relationship to the first. The first edition was longer and larger in format; this one is shorter, smaller and illustrated, and the changes are attributed to remarks made at public presentations and comments received in writing. The foreword directs readers who missed the first edition to the ministry’s own website. Both editions are therefore live documents rather than a supersession, although only the second is hosted here.

The rights position is the most restrictive of any file in our national-guides set apart from Singapore, and it is unusual in shape. Two copyright lines are printed one above the other on the imprint page: “© Ministry of National Defence, 2015” and “© Ilja Bereznickas, 2015”. The illustrator holds rights in his own name, separately from the publishing ministry. Anyone reproducing the illustrations is dealing with a private rightsholder, not only with a government body. Ilja Bereznickas is a Lithuanian animation director and artist, and the foreword credits him by name as the author of the illustrations. Both lines should be quoted together in any citation.

One point of restraint is worth recording. The document consistently uses the words aggressor, enemy forces and hostile forces. It does not name a state anywhere in its wartime sections. The reference plates at the back deal with identifying friendly forces, not with identifying any particular adversary. Readers should take the text as written.

How The Resistance Hub uses it

Lithuania is the pivot document in the national set indexed on National Preparedness Guides, because it is the one that crosses from civil protection into resistance without changing its tone. Its occupation and civil-resistance pages are the primary-source basis for the argument in Small States’ Total Defense Strategy, and its insistence on identifying legitimate forces by insignia, identity token and language belongs directly alongside Psychological Resilience: Small Nations.

For readers working through the practical layer, the supplies and basement-shelter sections feed Scenario Planning for Emergencies, and the repeated instruction to find companions and defend a building collectively is the household-scale version of the material in Social Resilience: Community Networks. The 2015 date matters: this is what one Baltic state was telling its households a decade before the grid and infrastructure decisions covered in Baltic States Power Grid Disconnection.

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