Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
A 68-year-old slipped into the Neman River on a September afternoon, hoping to reach a NATO border.
The small Russian town of Neman sits on the edge of Kaliningrad Oblast, with the river that shares its name forming the frontier with Lithuania.
For most locals the far bank is unreachable. For Igor Odintsov, 68, who was facing a military tribunal in Kaliningrad on charges tied to his anti-war online posts, it looked like the only exit.
He decided to swim across the river, which stretches up to 500 meters wide, reaching Lithuanian soil on September 17. He asked for political asylum, but by evening he was back in Russia.
On September 30, the Baltic Fleet Military Court in Kaliningrad sentenced him to six years in a strict-regime penal colony.
Turned back at the riverbank
Lithuanian border guards detained Odintsov at about 13:50 and returned him to Russia the same day.
In its explanation, the State Border Guard Service said that “there was no information indicating that the man faced threats or had special status that could have led to his admission to the European Union,” and that he was “not considered a vulnerable person.”
The service added that his request for protection was “not clearly or explicitly expressed.”
Odintsov had told officers he was persecuted in Russia over his activity on social media. Behind him in Kaliningrad, his trial was already underway; proceedings were suspended the day he disappeared and resumed on September 21 after his return to Russia.
Convicted over anti-war posts
The military court convicted Odintsov under Article 205.2 of Russia’s Criminal Code, which punishes “public calls to carry out terrorist activity,” over publications criticizing the war in Ukraine.
Mediazona, citing the ruling, reports that judges described him as an “opponent of the special military operation” who held “radical views.”
Sigitas Šamborskis, who chairs the Lithuanian community organization in the Kaliningrad region, called Vilnius’s decision to send him back “an ordinary betrayal.”
Lithuania has heavily restricted asylum access for Russian citizens at its land border since 2022, admitting mainly Ukrainians and Belarusians fleeing the war. Odintsov is now in Russian custody beginning his six-year term.
