Context: On April 17, 2026, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham appeared on Fox News and revealed that, during a phone call with Iran about the terms of the nuclear agreement, Donald Trump yelled at Iranian representatives so much that he went hoarse. Earlier, in an interview with Corriere della Sera published on April 14, Trump criticized Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for not helping him with the Iran issue and rebuked Pope Leo XIV for not doing a good job in his role.
During the Vecherni politicheski kanal show on April 15, 2026, the host and political analyst Vadzim Yalfimau introduced the topic of divisions within the alliance by noting that Donald Trump criticizes NATO, among other things, for its refusal to assist in the Middle East conflict. Alexander Tishchenko, a national security expert and guest on the stream, named one potential hotbed of conflict. He said that by strengthening the army, Poland could allegedly turn it against Lithuania. He invoked the Polish-Lithuanian war of a century ago as an argument:
“Poland, as it arms itself, its first strike would be at Lithuania. … While I was serving, I remember the village of Sapotskin, which is located on the border where Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus meet. There’s an arch there that no one talks about or shows, but it commemorates the Polish–Lithuanian war, where 500,000 people were killed. No more, no less. <...> 500,000. And that was in the 1920s.”
The reference is to the Polish–Lithuanian conflict of 1919–1920. After gaining independence, both countries attempted to establish new borders. Poland sought to expand its sphere of influence to include Lithuanian territories. The conflict began with an advance by ethnic Poles in the Lithuanian borderlands, which was supported by the Polish army. It continued with a rebellion organized by Poles in Lithuanian territories. Consequently, Lithuania maintained its sovereignty but ceded control of Vilnius.
However, neither Polish nor Lithuanian sources confirm losses of 500,000 people. Furthermore, according to the sources, there were not enough men involved in the fighting for such losses to be possible. The number of men involved in individual battles on each side ranged from a few thousand to 10,000 or 14,000. There were few significant battles in this conflict. Local historians estimate that about 50 to 70 people were killed in separate battles. Even if we assume the actual losses were higher, they still don’t amount to hundreds of thousands.
The Lithuanian side suffered the greatest losses in the fall of 1920, when approximately 2,000 soldiers were captured. The number of casualties in this episode is not reported, but it is known that approximately 7,000 fighters participated in the battle.
In other words, the figure of 500,000 is not supported by documentation or arithmetic. For comparison, the entire Lithuanian army that year numbered just over 40,000 soldiers.
