Another Russian officer deserts to Lithuania and asks for shelter

Lieutenant Ivan Korolyov, a Russian citizen, illegally crossed Lithuania’s border and travelled to Vilnius, where he was detained by Lithuania’s border guards at the Vilnius bus station on 10 August.

Source: European Pravda, citing BBC News Russian Service

Details: After being detained in Vilnius, Korolyov was returned to the border checkpoint, where he spent another day.

Korolyov had served in military unit no.59313-39, the Joint Strategic Command of the Eastern Military District. This unit is normally stationed in the village of Teysin, Khabarovsk Krai.

"On 3 August, I decided to leave the Russian Federation because I didn’t want to participate in the bloody war that my country had unleashed. I’m currently in the Republic of Lithuania, where I have applied for political asylum," Korolyov said.

"I took part in the war, but I was on the territory of the Russian Federation all this time. I was not on the territory of Ukraine," he said. "We were supplying Russian troops with ammunition. We received ammunition from all over Russia, from all sorts of units and arsenals, and distributed it to brigades and units in Ukraine."

Korolyov was "deputy head of the warehouse of the accounting and operational department of the field artillery depot". His asylum appeal was accepted for consideration on 11 August, and he was sent to a migration centre in Pabradė, where he will remain while the Lithuanian authorities consider his application.

Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service is currently investigating the circumstances of Korolyov’s arrival in Lithuania; it has not said whether he entered the country illegally, by crossing the state border, or from another Schengen state. TV3 reported that this is Korolyov’s second time in Lithuania; his asylum appeal was previously rejected and he was deemed an illegal migrant. The State Border Guard Service has not confirmed this.

Previously: A similar incident occurred in June, when Lieutenant Dmitry Mishov, a pilot with the Russian Air Force, arrived in Lithuania and asked its Migration Department for asylum. His appeal was registered.

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