[2] Urbšys died in 1991, having lived long enough to see Lithuania's independence restored, and was buried in Petrašiūnai Cemetery, Kaunas.

Urbšys was then named Lithuanian Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Latvia, although he did not hold this position for long; in 1934 he was appointed the head of the political department in the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Rumors arose in 1939 that Germany would attempt to recover the Baltic Seaport city of Memel from Lithuania (part of the Memelland region, the city and its surrounding area had until 1919 been part of the German province of East Prussia), which Lithuania had illegally invaded in January 1923.

[5] Von Ribbentrop stated that the explosive situation in Memel could not continue "and suggested the Lithuanian Government send plenipotentiaries to Berlin in order to reach an agreement between the two countries on it."

Von Ribbentrop replied that "matters in Lithuania were beyond our control" and that he could set no time limit, but suggested that plenopotentiaries be sent to Germany as soon as possible.

At 9 p.m. that night the Secretary of State in the German Foreign Office, Baron von Weizacker, summarised the Ribbontrop-Urbšys conversation in a telegram to the German Legation at Kaunas instructing the Minister there to "request toward noon tomorrow, Tuesday, you call on the Foreign Minister referring to this conversation, and ask him point blank when the plenopotentiaries will arrive in Berlin."

On March 21 the Lithuanian Council of Ministers advised their parliament of their decision to settle the Memel problem by ceding the territory to Germany.

[10] During the discussion a draft of a mutual assistance pact was presented, which resulted in the stationing of Red Army troops in Lithuania.

He regained notability after publishing his memoirs in 1988, a work described as one of the first to address Lithuanian history under Soviet rule.

His health was frail, preventing him from fully participating in the political process of independence, but he enjoyed the authority and respect of the Lithuanian people.

[11] Close to his death, Urbšys was interviewed by a Swedish diplomat, who visited him on 9 September 1990 in his poor Soviet era flat that was located in the outskirts of the Kaunas city (soon after the declaration of the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania on 11 March 1990).

When asked about the possible Lithuanian military resistance against the Soviet invasion in 1940, he said that it would have been impossible and that there is no reason to compare Lithuania situation with Finland, who fought the Winter War, because it had a much better geographical position, Karelia and Mannerheim Lines.