Moscow court sentences Lithuanian over damage to Soviet soldiers’ graves

The Moscow City Court has sentenced Lithuanian citizen and Vilnius resident Roma Liutkus to seven years in prison in absentia over alleged damage to Soviet soldiers’ graves, LRT reported.

The court also banned Liutkus from working in the administration of websites and electronic, information and telecommunications networks for five years, according to a statement from Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office.

Russian prosecutors said Liutkus was convicted of damaging military graves outside the Russian Federation, publicly insulting the memory of those who died defending their homeland during the Second World War and denigrating the honour and dignity of a Second World War veteran.

They alleged that Liutkus, then a candidate for Lithuania’s parliament, acted out of political and ideological hatred of Russia and damaged a military burial site for 119 Soviet soldiers at Krekenava in Panevėžys District. The soldiers were said to have died in 1944 while liberating Soviet Lithuania from Nazi occupation.

Liutkus rejected the allegations. He told BNS on Monday that in September 2024 he had removed three Lithuanian-language plaques bearing the words “Eternal glory to the heroes”. He said the plaques had been installed with funding from the Russian Embassy and that he had left the Russian-language plaques in place.

“This action was not directed against the soldiers. I wanted to show that the Lithuanian inscription had been imposed on us and was propagandistic,” Liutkus told BNS. He said he had handed the undamaged plaques to the Krekenava municipal elder.

The incident was investigated by Lithuanian police and the Cultural Heritage Department. Neither institution found any violations of the law.

In 2024, the Desovietisation Commission concluded that the monument and plaques at the Soviet soldiers’ burial site in Krekenava violated a ban on promoting totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.

Liutkus said he learned about the Moscow court’s ruling from public reports and had not received an invitation to attend a hearing or an interview. He said he knew he could not travel to certain countries where a Russian request for his detention might be enforced.