In the spring, on March 9, 1950, on the eve of the Soviet elections, the area of the Lauksteniai village bunker was blocked by garrison soldiers – a military-Chekist group of 17 people led by the head of the Ignalina MGB department, Senior Lieutenant Zinchenko, and Captain Moiseyenko. The soldiers arrived by car from Pašvoginė, and walked the rest of the way to the bunker on foot. Another group of soldiers remained in ambush in case the partisans decided to retreat towards the Uzsienių village.
The guard, having noticed the enemies, ordered to leave the bunker and prepare for defense. Approximately 1 km. from the bunker, the pursuers hit a partisan ambush - killing 1 soldier and wounding 1. However, as they retreated, the partisans scattered one by one - two by two and themselves became a target for the soldiers.
Those retreating to the Foreign side hit the entrenched machine gunners and died one after another. Petras Cicėnas – Žalgiris tried to escape the encirclement on horseback, but the bullets caught up with him too. Two fighters fell on the Lauksteniai barrows. Seven of the twelve partisans were lucky enough to escape safely. The following died during the retreat: Petras Cicėnas – Žalgiris, adjutant of the commander of the Lokis detachment (from Daubariškės village), Albertas Vytėnas – Siaubas (from Ažvinčiai village), Šventoji district headquarters officer Jonas Čičelis – Ramūnas (Šermukšnis) from Rokėnai village, and Stasys Butrimas – Kerštas (from Jakėnai village).
While pursuing the partisans, private Red Army soldiers Tolkach and Arzubov were wounded; the latter died of his injuries the same day.
The bodies of Žalgiris, Siaubas, Ramūnas and Kerštas were taken by sub-stations to Kazitiškis and kept overnight near the school, in the Baubinas garden. No one guarded the corpses – elections were taking place and Kazitiškis was full of soldiers. Until dark, partisans' property was taken from the bunker by several sub-stations – the harmonica was playing – the thugs celebrated the destruction of the „bandits“.
In the morning, after taking the bodies from the substations, they took them to Ignalina: they took off their shoes, covered their mouths with rosaries, and stuffed prayer books into their hands. For greater mockery, they propped some of them up with stakes, and made others sit down – supposedly bandits were holding a rally. It looked terrible: barefoot, Petras Cicėnas's fingers were only holding on to his skin – the shots hit his hand. A. Vytėnas had half of his head torn off by a grenade explosion. One of the dead was simply cut in half by a series of machine gun rounds. The circumstances of the destruction of the Lauksteniai bunker are well known: the act drawn up by the MGB states that the operation was carried out on the basis of a report by the informant Ragauskas.
Information updated 2026-01-13
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