According to Mantas Adomenas, Lithuania’s deputy overseas minister from 2020 till final August, Lithuania’s coverage — and proud custom — has been to offer refuge for these fleeing persecution.
“We spend appreciable effort in ensuring that dissidents are secure right here and safer than they might be, in truth, in lots of different nations,” Adomenas informed 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.
But in March, Leonid Volkov, the longtime chief of employees of the late Russian opposition chief Alexey Navalny, was assaulted with a hammer exterior his Vilnius residence. Three males had been arrested in April in relation to the assault: two Polish citizens accused of carrying it out, and a Belarussian, who allegedly ordered it. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the Belarussian was “working for the Russians.”
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda provided a public message to Putin after the assault: “Nobody is afraid of you right here.”
In Lithuania, about 2,500 Russians have been given humanitarian visas since Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Adomenas, the deputy overseas minister, informed 60 Minutes his nation maintains cautious checks on the dissident group.
“We know what Russian secret companies do to dissidents and to the opponents of the regime overseas,” Adomenas stated. “So, it’s a very kind of arduous job to maintain them secure right here.”
One distinguished Russian who has relocated to Vilnius is activist Anastasia Shevchenko. In 2019, Shevchenko was the primary Russian charged beneath a brand new legislation banning “undesirable organizations” — together with the pro-democracy group the place she fought for justice.
While Shevchenko was beneath home arrest, she was unable to take care of her severely disabled daughter, who lived at a Russian authorities care facility. Her daughter later died, and a Paramount+ documentary adopted Shevchenko’s journey to scatter her ashes within the Black Sea. Two years after her daughter’s loss of life, Russia convicted and sentenced Shevchenko to probation.
When Putin invaded Ukraine, Shevchenko and her two surviving youngsters fled to Vilnius. After she crossed the border, Russia positioned her on a needed listing; now if Shevchenko returns to her homeland, she faces quick imprisonment.
For now, Shevchenko stated her two youngsters are pleased in Lithuania and don’t want to return to Russia. But whereas she is now in a position to communicate freely about her criticism of Putin in her new nation, Shevchenko stated she nonetheless doesn’t really feel utterly protected.
“You by no means really feel secure, you understand, if you’re a Russian activist,” she stated. “When I say I stay in Lithuania, folks ask me, ‘Come on. Are you really secure there?’ I do not suppose I’m.”
The video above was initially printed on March 17, 2024. It was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer and edited by Scott Rosann.
