Traditional run in Vilnius to honor 1991 crackdown victims

The event will start at Antakalnis Cemetery, where the victims of the January 13, 1991 events were buried, at noon. Participants will run through the streets of Vilnius to the finish line at the TV Tower.

Almost 8,000 people took part in the tribute run, held annually since 1992, last year.

Fourteen people were killed and more than 800 were injured when the Soviet troops stormed the TV Tower and the Radio and Television Committee building in Vilnius in the early hours of January 13, 1991.

The Soviet Union used military force in its attempt to remove the legitimate government of Lithuania which declared independence on March 11, 1990.

Last year, Vilnius Regional Court convicted former Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov and more than 60 other former Soviet officials and military officers of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The majority of them were handed prison sentences in absentia.