Last week, the new Vilnius marketing campaign "Expectations vs. Reality" (lit. "Expectations and reality") received a lot of negative criticism from Vilnius residents.
On Tuesday, the former mayor of Vilnius, Artūras, appealed to the VSD and the National Security and Defense Committee regarding this advertisement, he reported on his Facebook account.
"Today I appealed to the VSD and the National Security and Defense Committee to evaluate the new "advertisement" of the capital city by the Mayor of Vilnius and Go Vilnius as a serious threat to national security.
Because this "nasha rasha"-style advertising film can mislead the Kremlin's GRU intelligence that there is a deeply preserved "nasha rasha" DNA in Vilnius, and this would encourage the Russian army to invade Vilnius, hoping for friendly approval. The same as Putin expected when he started the war against Ukraine in 2022. Therefore, the VSD must assess whether this is not a "bold measure" by Vilnius Mayor V.Benkunskas inviting not tourists from London and Berlin, but Russian soldiers to the enriched Vilnius?", writes Artūras Zuokas.
We remind you that the purpose of the latest video clip about Vilnius, which received criticism, is to attract the attention of foreign audiences by shocking, says Dovilė Aleksandravičienė, head of the city development agency "GoVilniaus".
As the agency itself announces, post-Soviet associations of the country's image are reflected in almost every Go Vilnius awareness and image survey, and in 2022. "Travel in Lithuania" survey also showed that all of Lithuania in the United Kingdom and Germany is associated with the concepts "Russia" (10%), "Eastern Europe" (respectively 8% and 7%), "poor, unknown country" (4 percent and 5 percent).
