Lithuania's prime minister, Andrius Kubilius is on bicycle holiday in Belarus, while the tension between the neighbouring countries seemingly is growing.

LITHUANIA'S relationship with Belarus is one of the puzzles of European diplomacy. Seen one way, relations seem icy. Lithuania is a favoured port of call for the beleaguered Belarusian opposition. The autocratic regime in Minsk shelters Vladimir Uschopchik, whom Lithuania wants to put on trial for the killings and failed putsch of January 1991. A senior Lithuanian spook, Vytautas Pociūnas, posted to a diplomatic job in Grodno (Gardinas in Lithuanian) died in still-unexplained circumstances in 2006.

Yet below the surface things are different. Trade ties are good. The Lithuanian authorities quietly keep close working relations with their southern neighbour, and have blocked (or at least queried) some attempts by the EU and America to impose sanctions. Lithuania's prime minister, Andrius Kubilius, takes his holidays in Belarus, cycling round the sites of the old Grand Duchy of Lithuania, with the local KGB (as it is still called) in polite but puzzled pursuit. Some fear that Belarus is the Achilles heel of Lithuania's Euro-Atlantic orientation. Others think that Lithuania is the one country that can guide Belarus back into the European fold. Perhaps both views are right.

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http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/08/lithuania-and-belarus