Valdas Rakutis

Valdas Rakutis was born on 17 June 1969 in Kaunas, Lithuania.

He is a Lithuanian military historian, scout movement activist, and politician.

In 2012, he completed the procedure to qualify for a professorship.

He received a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in 2000 from Vytautas Magnus University.

During 1997–1999, he undertook research internships at various military history institutions abroad, including the Polish Military History Institute in Warsaw, the Army Museum in Stockholm, and the Virginia Military Institute in the United States.

In 1996, he obtained a Master’s degree in History from Vytautas Magnus University.

In 1994, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in History from Vytautas Magnus University.

As a Member of Parliament, Rakutis earns a state salary; as of late 2024, an ordinary Seimas member’s take-home pay is about €4,000 per month.

From 2020 until 2024, an ordinary Seimas member like Rakutis received a take-home salary of just over €2,000 per month; after a late-2024 parliamentary pay raise, this nearly doubled to about €4,000 net monthly.

He was a Professor at Klaipėda University from 2017 to 2020.

He served as a Senior Advisor to the Lithuanian Armed Forces from 2015 to 2020.

In 2015, he served as an invited visiting professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland.

Rakutis was the Director of the Kaunas Fortress Park public enterprise from 2013 until 2020.

Rakutis worked at the Vytautas the Great War Museum, where he was Head of the Warfare History Unit from 1998 to 2003.

He worked at the General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania from 1996 to 2017, serving as Deputy Rector for studies from 2009 to 2014.

Rakutis became a member of the Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrat party in 2021.

He has served as a Member of the Seimas (Lithuanian Parliament) since 2020.

In April 2025, he became the Chair of the Seimas Commission for the Traditions and Heritage of Lithuanian Studies.

He is a member of the Seimas Committee on State Administration and Local Authorities (since November 2024).

In 2023, he became the chairman of the Seimas’ temporary group for cooperation with the scouts.

He later served as Chair of the Seimas Commission for Maritime Affairs from November 2022 to 2024.

He served as a member of the Seimas Committee on National Security and Defence from November 2020 to 2024.

Rakutis was the Chair of the Seimas Commission for the Cause of Freedom and National Historical Memory from December 2020 until March 2021.

He was re-elected to the Seimas in 2024, again through the Homeland Union’s national list.

In the 2024 Seimas elections, Rakutis was placed 22nd on the Homeland Union’s national candidate list and was re-elected as a Member of Seimas via the multi-member constituency.

In the 2024 Seimas elections, Rakutis was ranked 22nd on the Homeland Union’s national list. He garnered sufficient party votes and personal preferences to be re-elected via the multi-member constituency, as the Homeland Union won the largest share of list seats that year.

Rakutis’s election to the Seimas has been via the multi-member party list in both 2020 and 2024. In 2020, he was initially 42nd on the Homeland Union’s list and entered parliament after voter preference votes and single-seat wins by higher-listed candidates pushed him into the top tier. In 2024, his list ranking (22nd) virtually ensured his re-election via the party’s proportional representation seats.

In October 2020, Valdas Rakutis was elected to the Seimas as a Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrat candidate via the party list.

In the 2020 Seimas elections, Rakutis was ranked 42nd on the Homeland Union’s national party list. He did not run in a single-mandate constituency, but secured a parliamentary seat via the multi-member (party list) vote after the election results and preference vote reallocations were finalized.

In the 2020 parliamentary elections, Rakutis did not contest a single-mandate district but secured a seat via the party-list vote. He was initially listed 42nd on the Homeland Union’s list and earned sufficient preference votes to become one of the party’s 23 multi-member MPs once the votes were tallied and higher-listed members won district races, thus vacating list seats.

According to his 2024 election disclosures, Rakutis reported an annual income of €61,541 (approximately €5,100 per month) and total assets worth €66,736.

Rakutis has no known private business holdings, and his declared wealth has remained relatively modest and stable. There were no large unexplained changes in his assets during his term in parliament.

Rakutis’s asset declarations have remained modest and steady. He declared total assets of approximately €66,700 in his 2024 candidate filing, well below the Seimas average (around €280,000), and has reported no significant liabilities or business interests.

He is a co-founder of the Jonas Karolis Chodkevičius Charity and Support Fund (established in 2019).

In 2018, Rakutis became a board member of the European Federation of Fortified Sites.

He was one of the founders of the Scouts Support Fund in 2014.

He was the board chairman of the Kaunas Fortress Association (Kauno tvirtovė) from 2008 to 2018.

In 2000, he co-founded the Lithuanian Military History Society and served as its first chairman (2000–2003).

Rakutis has been involved in the Lithuanian scout movement since 1989 and served as the national chief scout in 1995–1996.

In July 2024, the Seimas Ethics and Procedures Commission concluded that Rakutis’s comments about women’s duty to bear children violated the principle of respect in the politicians’ code of conduct.

Following the backlash, Valdas Rakutis resigned as chairman of the parliamentary historical memory commission on January 29, 2021.

The U.S. Ambassador to Lithuania, Robert Gilchrist, condemned Rakutis’s Holocaust remarks as "shocking" and accused him of espousing distortions.

On April 21, 2024, Rakutis argued that young women should stop "messing around" and have children, calling 30-year-old women who don’t want kids the biggest problem for Lithuania’s low birth rate.

On January 27, 2021, Rakutis claimed that "there was no shortage of Holocaust perpetrators among the Jews themselves," sparking outrage.

He wrote in an academic discussion around 2000 that the Holocaust gas chamber was a "very humane" method of exterminating Jews, a shocking view that resurfaced in 2021.

In 2018, he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order for Merits to Lithuania.

He is married to Aistė Rakutienė and has four children (daughters Živilė and Simona, and sons Jonas and Paulius). None of his family members are known to have significant independent wealth or business interests.

In 2021, Rakutis became the chairman of the Seimas Inter-Parliamentary Relations Group for cooperation with the Benelux countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg).

Rakutis’s public declarations of private interests show no conflicts of interest. He has listed his roles in academia, NGOs, and the scout movement but no ties to private companies. His wife and children are not involved in government or business dealings that would pose ethical concerns, and no lobbyist contacts or gifts involving Rakutis appear in the official transparency registers.

Before Lithuania’s independence, Rakutis studied at a naval school in Leningrad (1987–1988) and served in the Soviet Army in 1988–1989.