Lithuanians Block Troops From Entering Printing Plant

MOSCOW —  Thousands of Lithuanians prevented Soviet troops from entering a newspaper plant in Vilnius early Sunday, according to residents, in the latest confrontation since the republic declared independence four weeks ago.

The action came one day after more than 150,000 people at a pro-independence rally in Vilnius, the republic’s capital, heard President Vytautas Landsbergis say that the Kremlin would be unable to prevent Lithuania from breaking away from the Soviet Union.

Hundreds of Soviet soldiers arrived Sunday at the plant, which prints newspapers that support the independence drive.

Eduardas Potashinskas of Lithuanian television, speaking by telephone, put the number of troops at 200 to 400. He estimated that about 2,000 Lithuanians, many of them carrying picket signs and Lithuanian flags, blocked their entry.

About 30 Soviet soldiers already were inside the plant, which troops first occupied last weekend. They have not disrupted the plant’s operations and made no move to disperse Sunday’s crowd.

Residents said the troops outside eventually withdrew.

Meantime, a Soviet official said Sunday that Moscow is engaged in a “political dialogue” with Lithuania.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” Vitaly I. Churkin, an adviser to the Soviet Foreign Ministry, said Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev wants to resolve the situation “through political dialogue, and obviously this is what is going on now.”

But Algimantis Cekuolis, a Lithuanian official who appeared on the same program, called that a “lie.”

“They would be very happy to do anything to overthrow that (Lithuanian) government, like using a military force from inside and economical blockade from outside,” Cekuolis said. “That lie . . . that political dialogue going on. . . . There is no political dialogue, if you don’t mean (a Soviet-made) Kalashnikov gun.”