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Ramūnas Bogdanas in the Lithuanian site Delfi.lt writes, that there is one main question regarding the disclosed phone conversations of two Lithuanian ambassadors: who recorded them and leaked on youtube?

According to the author focusing on the content of the conversations would mean swallowing the bait. “Let’s begin with the location of the ‘long ears’ – leaker(s). There are two possibilities: on the inside or on the outside. Who on the inside would be interested enough? First of all, in Lithuania there are institutions monitoring the flow of confidential information. Secondly, the people responsible may be professionals or daring amateurs. What is more, these are people with access to recordings of diplomat conversations. The leaker must have been an interested person or institution. Lithuanian institutions are capable of finding less painful ways to replace an unsuitable employee,” Bogdanas writes.

Things are slightly different with persons, he notes. Nowadays, we are bombarded via all possible channels that global competition is a good thing. It also exists in the civil service where the number of important posts is smaller than the number of people who want them. It is fact that Lithuania has (and must have) ambassadors in reserve. Some of them are working really hard, some – idling through the corridors of the Ministry, gathering information about the countries that will have an ambassador rotation and plotting to take the free seat.

But this version, though still plausible, is less possible than the assumption that the leaker(s) is on the outside. First of all, the disclosed conversations of the ambassadors to Azerbaijan and Hungary have one thing in common – both are related to Azerbaijan. Even though supposedly two different persons uploaded the videos on youtube – a Lithuanian and a Turkmen – both titles and visual styling are the same. From a philological point of view it would seem that the same person made the English subtitles. The conversations were uploaded on 8 July. They become publicly known at the end of July.

The author also says that the dissemination of the phone conversations of the two ambassadors are linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Baku, “Russia is doing all it can to subdue Azerbaijan. Recently, it has destroyed Baku’s plans to lay a pipeline on the bottom of the Caspian Sea: purportedly, the sea’s status isn’t defined and every coast country has to give its permission. It seems that our ambassadors were on ‘silovik’ Sechin’s to-do list to create a favorable atmosphere for Putin’s visit. Aliyev is being set against Lithuania, the future Eastern Partnership’s summit host. At the same time, a shadow is cast on the EU’s diplomacy,” Bogdanas writes. Talking of the translator who had prepared the subtitles of the record, the author notes that it seems they tried to disguise as a translator from the West.

The author wonders, would it not be better to take example from the court practices – illegally obtained evidence is simply rejected. “I listened to both recordings thoroughly. And I didn’t find anything tragic in them,” notes the journalist and adds that the ambassadors were talking in a slightly smug style, considering themselves knights on an invisible front. “I heard there were recordings much more scandalous than these. But that is just the way our diplomatic corps is. We have what we have,” he writes.

Summing up the author says, “This entire story shows clearly that the security of governmental communications has to be taken care of; otherwise, we will be serving others as a card during high-stakes games.”

In its turn, as Delfi.lt reports, Andrius Kubilius, the leader of the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, claims that the Lithuanian government's response to the scandal, in connection with the disclosure of the phone conversations of Arturas Zhurauskasa and Renatas Yushki, the ambassadors to Azerbaijan and Hungary, was to be more rational.

"I have the impression that our eastern neighbors wanted to show by this story that they see, hear and watch over all. That is, all the talks, not specifically this or that ambassador’s; everything is fixed and then at some point they do with it what is more profitable for that moment," the politician says.

According to “15min.lt”, records of Lithuanian Ambassadors to Azerbaijan and Hungary were posted on YouTube in July, where, as stated, the two ambassadors talk to the diplomats and businessmen in Vilnius. On the record they informally share their personal observations about the Azerbaijani-Armenian relations, as well as the visit of Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius to Russia, etc.

After the publicity of these conversations in the network Ministry of Foreign Affairs received the resignation petition of Arturas Zhurauskas, the Lithuanian Ambassador to Azerbaijan. Lithuanian officials called the publicity of these conversations in the network an Information provocation.

Last week, Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius reported that the leaders of the state had lost their confidence in the ambassadors and the latter can no longer hold the office. On Thursday, the President of Lithuania Dalia Gribauskaite has signed a decree recalling Zhurauskas and Yushki from their diplomatic mission.