On the page newsbalt.ru, which has been criticized as a propaganda site, leader of the dissolved pro-Soviet Jedinstvo party in Lithuania Valery Ivanov, presented as a famous historian of Lithuania and eyewitness to and researcher of the January events in Lithuania, presented his views on those events. According to him, the events on that tragic day for Lithuania when fourteen people defending the independence of the country were killed were all staged and Russian tanks did not actually drive over people. Allegedly, one of his friends told him that for one day of filming on that day you could get paid quite a bit, while the tank was brought from some Lithuanian military unit. He recounted the alleged story of his friend, saying that after an Englishman gave a command, a Soviet T–74 tank drove up to the people and they started trying to stop it with their hands by standing in front of the tank, and then a disabled person without the legs was placed near the tracks of this tank, and the tank drove over empty trouser legs that were laid out in the snow.
Looking at the pictures, where under the tank's tracks Angele Pladytė and Loreta Tručiliauskaitė were crushed, Mr. Ivanov stated that the tank is stationary and said that the women were tucked underneath by the director. He said, as evidence of his position, that the photographer would have been unable stand so close, as the moving tank's front track guard would have hit him, and in the background of the picture there are two smiling guys which is also evidence that everything is staged.
Where the defenders of the television tower got a Soviet tank to drive around and have a photo session, the self-styled historian did not disclose.
