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Putin's invasion of Ukraine shocked governments across the world who thought it would never happen.

But Russia's Baltic neighbors were not surprised, and had been trying for years to warn of a war.

Leaders in those countries described to Insider the grim experience of being proved right.

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Šimonytė [Lithuania's prime minister] said Lithuania's approach was informed by the fact that "many of the people who went through the hell of Soviet occupation are still living — including myself."

She said it left Lithuania with "a very sensitive ear to what was happening" in Russia as it prepared to invade, all the while denying that it had any intention of starting a war.

"Some of our friends in other countries were kind of thinking it cannot be like this, this is not rational, let's be realistic, you are paranoid, and this sort of stuff. And I think it was delusional."

She said the "major difference" was western Europe enjoying 80 years of peace after World War II, whereas "for us, this is not the case because first we had to live through 50 years of occupation of the Soviet regime, and then slightly more than 30 years of our restored independence."

"So the memory is still living."

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For millennia the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, becoming king and founding the Kingdom of Lithuania on 6 July 1253.

In the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe; present-day Lithuania, Belarus, most of Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were all lands of the Grand Duchy.

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„Human Life Has No Value There“: Baltic Counterintelligence Officers Speak Candidly About Russian Cruelty

The Estonian weekly Eesti Ekspress interviewed the heads and several employees of Estonia’s, Latvia’s, and Lithuania’s state security agencies. This is what they had to say regarding Russia.