Lithuania returned an anti-war activist to Russia, where he received six years’ imprisonment.
In September 2026, 68-year-old Russian citizen Igor Odintsov, who, according to the chairman of the Lithuanian community in the Kaliningrad region, had helped defend Lithuania’s independence in January 1991, swam across the Neman River in an attempt to escape criminal prosecution in Russia for his anti-war activities. Following an assessment involving Lithuania’s State Security Department (VSD), Lithuania returned him to the Russian authorities. On 30 September, a military court sentenced him to six years in a strict-regime penal colony. The human rights organisation Our House strongly protests Lithuania’s return of anti-war activists and conscientious objectors to Belarus and Russia, where they face a genuine risk of repression.
In 1991, Igor Odintsov Helped Defend Lithuania’s Independence
On 7 October, the Lithuanian news outlet Lrytas published an account by Sigitas Šamborskis, chairman of the Lithuanian community in the Kaliningrad region, who had known Igor Odintsov since the early 1990s. According to Šamborskis, at a time when Lithuania needed the support of Russian democrats, intellectuals and military personnel, Odintsov was actively involved in these efforts and sought to help.
Šamborskis says that during the tragic events of 13 January 1991, Odintsov visited both the Vilnius television tower and the parliament building, and that he did not arrive “empty-handed”. The interviewee did not disclose precisely what assistance Odintsov brought.
Thirty-five years later, the same man who, according to this testimony, had supported Lithuania’s independence at a moment of mortal danger sought protection from the Lithuanian state because of his anti-war activities in Russia. The Russian pensioner opposed Russia’s aggression and its invasion of Ukraine. Yet instead of finding the protection he expected in Lithuania, he was, in our view, betrayed: Lithuania returned him to Vladimir Putin’s grasp.
Chronology: He Swam Across the Neman, Lithuania Returned Him, and Russia Sentenced Him to Six Years
On 17 September 2026, the day a Russian court was due to hear his case, Odintsov swam across the Neman from the Kaliningrad region into Lithuania. At around 2 p.m., Lithuanian border guards detained him in Pagėgiai municipality. He did not resist, and the officers provided him with dry clothing and footwear.
An assessment then lasted approximately five hours and, according to Lrytas, involved officers from the VSD and other agencies. Lithuania’s Minister of the Interior, Martynas Katelynas, publicly stated at the time that the detainee had requested asylum, explaining that he was being persecuted in Russia for his activity on social media. The minister also confirmed that, following an assessment by the responsible institutions, including Lithuania’s State Security Department, a decision had been taken to return the man to Russia.
At approximately 7 p.m. that same day, Odintsov was returned to the Kaliningrad region through the Panemunė–Sovetsk border crossing. According to information on the Russian criminal proceedings cited by Lrytas from the Russian West news portal and the Baltic Fleet Military Court, he was detained on 21 September. On 30 September, the court sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment in a strict-regime penal colony and prohibited him from administering websites and online channels for three years following his release.
The Russian authorities classified Odintsov’s posts as public calls for terrorist activity and alleged that he had circulated material justifying terrorism. At the same time, the description of the charges specifically noted that he opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and was critical of the Russian state authorities. As the full texts of the incriminating posts are not reproduced in the available materials, it is impossible to establish independently what each message contained. Nevertheless, the political context of the prosecution and the subsequent six-year sentence are documented in the published sources.
For a 68-year-old pensioner, six years in a Russian penal colony, under the conditions in which political prisoners and anti-war activists are held, amounts, in our assessment, to a death sentence. His chances of being released alive are vanishingly small.
Who Decided to Return the Pensioner to Russia?
The involvement of Lithuania’s State Security Department raises particularly serious questions. The mere fact that the VSD participated in the assessment does not establish that the department alone ordered Odintsov’s return. However, the Minister of the Interior publicly linked the decision to an inter-agency assessment involving that service. Border guards subsequently stated that they had also examined the risks the Russian citizen allegedly posed if admitted to the European Union, yet the article disclosed no specific evidence substantiating those risks.
This reveals a fundamental contradiction: the danger that Lithuanian agencies purportedly saw in an elderly anti-war activist remains unclear to the public, whereas the danger of returning him to Russia proved entirely real. His criminal prosecution continued and culminated in a six-year prison sentence. The imprisonment of a Russian anti-war activist makes an independent examination imperative: what information did Lithuania’s security agencies possess on 17 September, and how did they assess the risk of ill-treatment and politically motivated punishment in Russia?
Did He Seek Asylum? Conflicting Official Accounts
After news of the sentence emerged, the border guard service offered an account that differed from the minister’s initial statement. Its spokesperson, Giedrius Mišutis, told Lrytas that the interview had supposedly revealed only indications that the man might wish to seek international protection, and that, after the procedure was explained, he had not expressed that intention sufficiently clearly. The agency also maintained that Odintsov had not identified any threat to his life or liberty if returned.
This explanation does not withstand scrutiny. First, a Russian citizen who had swum across a river in September in our climate, fleeing imprisonment in Russia, could hardly be expected to provide a perfectly coherent account while suffering from cold and fear. We have seen people immediately after they reached Lithuania and know the condition in which they can arrive.
Second, we have encountered other cases, including that of Belarusian conscientious objector Vitali Dvaryashyn, who requested political asylum at the Lithuanian border and, according to our account of his case, completed the application in accordance with Lithuanian law, only for border guards to throw it away without even registering it.
It bears repeating that, on 17 September, Lithuania’s Minister of the Interior expressly referred to a request for asylum and to persecution over social media posts. Those public statements must be compared with the interview recording, the official records, the State Security Department’s documents and the return decision. What matters legally is not whether this pensioner was familiar with Lithuanian immigration terminology or legislation, but whether he communicated a need for protection and whether the danger of sending him back was assessed objectively.
International protection does not depend on the use of one prescribed formula. A request may be made orally, even in the most inarticulate terms, with a single cry of “Help me!” Moreover, the prohibition on returning a person to a country where there is a real risk of torture or inhuman treatment requires a separate assessment. When contacted by journalists, a representative of the Migration Department invoked the confidentiality of case information and did not clarify whether the department had participated in examining the circumstances of this particular case.
For a 68-Year-Old, Six Years in a Russian Strict-Regime Colony Is Effectively a Death Sentence
Odintsov is 68 years old. Given the torture, lack of medical care and ill-treatment documented in Russian penal colonies, a lengthy sentence in a strict-regime institution effectively amounts, in our assessment, to a death sentence. Šamborskis told Lrytas that he doubted the pensioner would emerge alive. We, too, doubt that this elderly anti-war activist will survive his imprisonment in Russia.
Nevertheless, Lithuania decided to send him back to Russia despite being well aware of the treatment of political prisoners in Russian detention facilities and of the criminal prosecution he faced over anti-war statements and support for Ukraine. In our view, the Lithuanian security authorities could not have been unaware of the foreseeable consequences of imprisonment, including the significance of his age, health and the risk of ill-treatment.
For these reasons, we do not regard the pensioner’s return to a Russian prison as a mere mistake by Lithuania. We consider it a deliberate political decision whose effect was to assist Vladimir Putin’s campaign against the anti-war movement in Russia.
Statement by the Human Rights Organisation Our House
The human rights organisation Our House strongly protests the practice of returning and deporting Russian and Belarusian anti-war activists, as well as conscientious objectors to military service, to Russia and Belarus, where they face political persecution, imprisonment, torture or other serious human rights violations.
We consider it unacceptable that anti-war activists, supporters of Ukraine’s freedom and conscientious objectors from Belarus and Russia should be deported from Lithuania and end up in Russian and Belarusian prisons on the pretext of hypothetical and unsubstantiated threats to national security.
Vague references to abstract security considerations cannot replace a legal assessment of responsibility for a decision that consigns a person to years of suffering in a Russian or Belarusian prison merely because they oppose war and/or authoritarianism.
Our House has consistently raised concerns about the situation of Russian and Belarusian conscientious objectors and anti-war activists, including those who oppose Russia’s war against Ukraine and support Ukraine’s right to freedom and security.
We demand an independent international investigation into the circumstances of Igor Odintsov’s return; disclosure, to the extent legally permissible, of information concerning the roles of the State Security Department, the border guard service and other Lithuanian authorities; an examination of compliance with the principle of non-refoulement; and a review of how alleged security threats are assessed in cases involving anti-war activists and conscientious objectors from Belarus and Russia. National security must not become a mechanism of repression through which genuine victims of political persecution in Belarus and Russia are left defenceless against repressive regimes. In such circumstances, we believe Lithuania risks acting as a de facto partner of Putin and Lukashenko by helping to suppress anti-war movements in those countries.
Historical Responsibility
In January 1991, according to Sigitas Šamborskis, Igor Odintsov came to support those defending Lithuania’s independence. In September 2026, when he himself sought protection in Lithuania from Russian criminal prosecution, he was sent back; less than two weeks later, a Russian military court sentenced him to six years in a penal colony. That is why this story demands more than sympathy for one individual. It requires a public answer to the question of why Lithuania’s security system, which exists to defend freedom and democratic institutions, in practice became, in our assessment, a reliable partner in Vladimir Putin’s repression of anti-war activists.
We await answers to our questions.
