Karaļaučius will never be Kaliningrad, said Lithuania's president, accusing Russia of distorting history.

The President of Lithuania, Gitanas Nausėda, responded to Russia's decision to rename the memorial museum of poet Kristijonas Donelaitis in the Kaliningrad region. He described this move as "yet another attempt to rewrite history."

"Although the long-time residents of Small Lithuania, which is now part of the so-called Kaliningrad region, have long since departed, it is essential to preserve the last traces of Lithuanian culture. No matter how hard Russia tries, Karaliaučius will never become Kaliningrad," Nausėda wrote on his social media page on platform X.

The renamed museum occupies the building of the former Lutheran church and the pastor's house, where Kristijonas Donelaitis lived, worked, and created his works.

"What’s next? Book burning?" noted Nausėda.

Karaliaučius is the Lithuanian name for Kaliningrad. In 2023, members of the Lithuanian Seimas, Vilius Semeshka and Paulė Kuzmičkienė, proposed to the Lithuanian language commission to abandon the Soviet name Kaliningrad and adopt one of the historical variants, Karaliaučius.