On 17 September 2026, 67-year-old Igor Odintsov swam across the border between Russia (Kaliningrad Region) and Lithuania. He was fleeing criminal proceedings brought against him at home over an anti-war statement (Article 205.2(2) of the Criminal Code — justification of terrorism).
After crossing the Neman river and reaching Lithuania, he was detained by officers of the VSAT border service. Odintsov immediately requested political asylum. It did not help: within a few hours he was returned to Russia. As later emerged, the border guards deemed the pensioner’s request “not clearly expressed.”
On 21 September, Odintsov was detained in Russia. On 2 October, a military court sentenced him to 6 years’ imprisonment.
The EXILES’s lawyer points out that the Lithuanian authorities’ actions are a direct violation of the European Convention on Human Rights — and that they ought to be assessed by Lithuania’s interior minister and prosecutor general.
I would like to draw attention to two circumstances in this case.
First, people who knew Odintsov personally say that he took part in the protests of 1990, when the Lithuanian people were asserting their right to tie their future to Europe rather than to the Soviet Union.
Second, to the claim by VSAT officers that Odintsov’s request was insufficiently clear, I would counter with the position of the European Court of Human Rights set out in M.A. and Others v. Lithuania (no. 59793/17, § 109, 11 December 2018).
That case concerned an application by a Chechen family — two parents and five young children. They requested asylum repeatedly: three times at the Lithuanian border and dozens of times (!) at the Polish border.
In applying for asylum, the applicants wrote the word “azul.” This word is often used by Chechen refugees to mean “asylum.” But the border guards pretended not to understand what was meant, maintaining that the asylum request was not sufficiently clearly expressed — and sent the family back.
Eventually their asylum application was accepted at the Polish border. But not for all of them. M.A. himself (the husband and father) had by then already been taken into custody in Russia, where he was subjected to torture.
The European Court’s legal reasoning follows:
“The Court further observes that UNHCR, in its submissions to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding Lithuania, emphasised that a wish to apply for asylum did not need to be expressed in any particular form (see paragraph 53 above). Similarly, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has recommended that member States provide border officers with training to enable them to detect and understand asylum requests, even in cases where asylum seekers are not in a position to clearly communicate their intention to seek asylum (see paragraph 55 above). In the light of these factors, the Court considers that the word “azul’” being written on the seven decisions refusing the applicants entry into Lithuania should have been sufficient indication for the border guards at the Medininkai checkpoint that the applicants were seeking asylum.”
The Court ultimately found Lithuania in violation of Articles 3 (prohibition of torture) and 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the Convention, and awarded €22,000 in compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
In principle, Lithuania should have reported to the Committee of Ministers on the execution of that judgment and on the training of VSAT officers in how to act when a person applies for asylum.
Unfortunately, we can see that they were not trained well enough — and the situation has repeated itself. Lithuania has once again breached the same provisions of the Convention as in the M.A. case.
The upshot is that Odintsov received not protection from an EU country, but 6 years in a penal colony from Russia. And for doing precisely what Europe demands of Russian citizens: publicly condemning the war.
For those who remain in Russia and speak out against Russian aggression, this is a heavy hint that they should not count on support in Europe.
And we would like to put an uncomfortable question to the Lithuanian authorities: “Whose side are you actually on in this war?” Because grand and lofty words are pronounced regularly — and just as regularly diverge from deeds.
Evidently the period of Soviet occupation cost Lithuania very dearly, if 36 years of European integration have still not been enough for European values to take sufficient root there.
But we are convinced that being European is not merely a matter of holding an EU passport. Being European means sharing and defending the values set out in the European Convention on Human Rights, whether propagandists and populists of every stripe like it or not.
We will refrain from passing moral judgment on the actions of the VSAT officers. But we sincerely hope that both the interior minister and the prosecutor general of Lithuania will give this egregious case the legal assessment it deserves.
If you need help from our lawyers, write to us here or by email.
Leave a Reply