Ukraine Extradited a Russian Serviceman Suspected of Torture to Lithuania

Ukraine has handed over a Russian serviceman suspected of committing war crimes, including torture, to Lithuania.

This was stated by Lithuanian Prosecutor General Nida Grunskienė on Friday, Delfi reports.

A Russian citizen who participated in the full-scale war against Ukraine was brought to Lithuania this week.

He is suspected of committing a war crime against a Lithuanian citizen on Ukrainian territory.

On Thursday, the Vilnius District Court granted the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office and allowed the Russian to be imprisoned for three months.

In Lithuania, he was charged with war crimes against civilians and prisoners of war, torture, and illegal detention.

Under Lithuanian law, the suspect faces 10 to 20 years in prison or life imprisonment.

According to the investigation, from March to September 2022, Russian army personnel, including personnel of the 177th Separate Naval Infantry Regiment of the Caspian Flotilla Marines, participated in the organization of a filtration camp at a training base located on the territory of the Melitopol military airfield in Zaporizhzhia region.

“Civilians and prisoners of war were illegally detained, tortured and humiliated there. Among them was a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania,” Grunskene said.

Already in August 2023, the Ukrainian Defense Forces detained a senior sailor of the regiment.

Lithuania suspects that he, along with other Russian military personnel, not only guarded illegally detained civilians and prisoners of war in the camp, but also participated in their beatings, torture, imprisonment in a metal safe, suffocation to the point of unconsciousness, hanging with hands tied, keeping them in cold air, dousing them with cold water and causing electric shocks.

The decision to extradite the above-mentioned suspect to Lithuania was made by the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Ruslan Kravchenko.