{"id":518414,"date":"2026-02-17T13:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T10:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=518414"},"modified":"2026-02-17T15:46:01","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T12:46:01","slug":"vytis-jurkonis-awarded-officer-s-cross-of-the-order-for-merits-to-lithuania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/vytis-jurkonis-awarded-officer-s-cross-of-the-order-for-merits-to-lithuania","title":{"rendered":"Vytis Jurkonis Awarded Officer\u2019s Cross of the Order \u201cFor Merits to Lithuania\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>On February 16, on the occasion of the Day of the Restoration of the State, President of the Republic of Lithuania <b>Gitanas Naus\u0117da<\/b> presented state awards for merit and for promoting the country abroad. Among those honoured was Lithuanian political analyst well known in Belarus, <b>Vytis Jurkonis<\/b>.<\/p>\n<p>Jurkonis was awarded the Officer\u2019s Cross of the Order \u201cFor Merits to Lithuania\u201d for his contribution to promoting Lithuania\u2019s name as a centre of freedom and democracy abroad and for supporting the implementation of Lithuania\u2019s foreign policy initiatives, the Lithuanian president\u2019s press service reported.<\/p>\n<p>Vytis Jurkonis is a Lithuanian political analyst, a leading expert on Belarus, a lecturer at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University, and head of the Lithuanian office of Freedom House. He has personally helped thousands of Belarusians who sought refuge in Lithuania from repression by the Lukashenka regime.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-518336\" src=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/crop_800x500_rdackus_dsc_0896.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"750\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/crop_800x500_rdackus_dsc_0896.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/crop_800x500_rdackus_dsc_0896-300x188.jpg 300w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/crop_800x500_rdackus_dsc_0896-768x480.jpg 768w, https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/crop_800x500_rdackus_dsc_0896-640x400.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On February 16, on the occasion of the Day of the Restoration of the State, President of the Republic of Lithuania Gitanas Naus\u0117da presented state awards for merit and for promoting the country abroad. Among those honoured was Lithuanian political analyst well known in Belarus, Vytis Jurkonis. Jurkonis was awarded the Officer\u2019s Cross of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":518413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/6994630f966a7.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Vytis Jurkonis Awarded Officer\u2019s Cross of the Order \u201cFor Merits to Lithuania\u201d"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-518414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}