Prosecutors send terrorism case involving six suspects to court

Lithuania’s Prosecutor General’s Office has sent to court a criminal case against six people accused of planning a terrorist attack and other crimes, LRT reported on Wednesday.

Prosecutors say members of an organised terrorist group planned to kill at least two people because of their political opposition views and public activities. One target was allegedly chosen for publicly opposing Russia’s current government, while the other was targeted for providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Media reports previously identified the potential targets as Ruslan Gabbasov, a Bashkir national movement leader living in Lithuania, and Valdas Bartkevičius, a public figure collecting support for Ukraine. One suspect was detained near Gabbasov’s home.

The six defendants face charges including participation in an organised terrorist group, recruitment for terrorist activity, financing terrorism, travelling for terrorist purposes, preparing to carry out a terrorist act, unlawfully collecting information about a person’s private life, unlawful possession of software and passwords, assisting another state in acting against Lithuania, and unlawful possession of narcotic substances without the intention of distributing them.

The case was separated from a large and complex pretrial investigation being conducted by the Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau. That investigation, launched in 2025, is being organised and led by a prosecutor from the Organised Crime and Corruption Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General’s Office.

The bureau is cooperating with Lithuania’s State Security Department and international partners. Fourteen people are currently suspected of possible terrorist and other criminal activities in the ongoing investigation.

According to investigators, the group was preparing to carry out a terrorist act in Lithuania by killing at least two people. Investigators believe both victims were selected because of their political views and related public activities.

The investigation began after a Russian citizen living in Lithuania contacted officers in early 2025 after finding a tracking device left in his car by an unidentified person. Investigators later determined that his life and health faced a real threat.

As the investigation continued, officers identified the alleged intended perpetrators and their accomplices and established that they were also planning to kill a Lithuanian citizen.

Investigators found that, since the summer of 2024, several citizens of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova and Greece who lived in Lithuania or had travelled there for the purpose had unlawfully collected information about potential victims, including by using technical tracking devices.

The main suspects were detained in Vilnius on March 12, 2025, with the assistance of the Lithuanian police special operations counterterrorism unit Aras. The case file sent to the Vilnius Regional Court contains 51 volumes of documents.