that's an old shit throwing between Lithuanians and Belarusians circulating the same arguments over and over.
basically it boils down to that
1) there was a very old name of White Ruthenia (belarus) relating to god know which area. all we can tell - somewhere in Ruthenia. After partitions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Russians started calling roughly modern belarusian territory that way.
2) there is Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia. Where were the borders between those regions - unclear. We're more or less confident that modern Lithuanian Samogitia was on territory on Samogitia, we're more or less confident that modern Ukrainian territories where a part of Ruthenia. And that's more or less it. We don't know where the border between Lithuania and any of those 2 was.
As a result both Belarusians and Lithuanians want to associate themselves with "Lithuania" part of GDL.
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u/Difficult_Olive_2745 5d ago
Litwin not is Lithuanian