“2014年俄罗斯占领克里米亚时，我祖父对我说：‘准备打仗吧。俄罗斯人会回来的，他们不会手下留情。’” 现年50岁的托马兹·兹维尔布利斯是立陶宛边境情报部门的高级调查员，居住在基尔巴泰——一个紧邻俄罗斯飞地加里宁格勒的小镇。苏联时期，他的祖父被流放到西伯利亚，父亲便在那里出生。
"When Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, my grandfather told me: 'Prepare for war. The Russians will come back, and they will show no mercy.'" Tomas Zvirblis, 50, is a senior investigator for Lithuanian border intelligence services and lives in Kybartai, a small town right next to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. During the Soviet era, his grandfather was deported to Siberia, where his father was born.
战争与压迫从未停止过对其家族的纠缠。在苏联时期，立陶宛被流放者从劳改营返回后，仍处于当局的严密监视之下。更糟糕的是，兹维尔布利斯家族信奉天主教，这让他们备受双重怀疑——监视从未间断。”当时人们常说，屋子里如果有三个人，第三个就是为克格勃干活的，” 兹维尔布利斯回忆道，他在“第三个人”的阴影下长大，每当听到2014年以来顿巴斯地区回荡着俄罗斯占领的回声，便不由自主地联想到往昔。
War and oppression have never stopped haunting his family. In the Soviet Union, when Lithuanian deportees returned from the camps, they remained under close surveillance by the authorities. To make things worse, the Zvirblis family was Catholic, which made them doubly suspect – surveillance was constant. "At the time, people used to say that if there were three people in a room, the third one was working for the KGB," recalled Zvirblis, who grew up in the shadow of that "third person" and can't help but think of it when he hears echoes of the Russian occupation in the Donbas since 2014.
他听从祖父的劝告志愿服役——当时服役还是自愿的，2015年才恢复义务兵役制——随后加入了立陶宛步枪联盟，这是一个由国防部监管的志愿者组织。该联盟成立于1919年，前一年立陶宛刚刚宣布独立，其使命是协助保卫初建的立陶宛共和国。自1990年立陶宛从苏联恢复独立以来，联盟延续了这一使命，而在战争迫在眉睫的当下，其作用比以往任何时候都更为重要。目前联盟拥有2万名成员，男女皆有；2021年成员数为1万。
He listened to his grandfather and volunteered for military service, which was optional at the time – it became mandatory again in 2015 – before joining the Lithuanian Riflemen's Union, a volunteer group overseen by the defense ministry. Founded in 1919, after the country declared independence the previous year, the Union's mission was to help defend the fledgling Lithuanian Republic. It has continued to do so since Lithuania regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, and now more than ever with war looming at the country's doorstep. The Union currently has 20,000 members, both men and women; in 2021, there were 10,000.