A Belarusian citizen who fought for Ukraine and later tried to settle in Lithuania but was deported has been arrested in Minsk.
Opposition media Nasha Niva reported on Wednesday that Vasily Veremeichik was detained in Vietnam on November 13 and extradited to Belarus the following day, suggesting it had been a planned operation.
State television ONT showed a plane landing at Minsk airport and Veremeichik being led out with his hands tied.
Veremeichik returned to Lithuania to join his wife and daughter after completing his service in Ukraine. In February 2023, he took part in the LRT fundraiser to buy radars for Ukraine’s armed forces.
Veremeichik reportedly disclosed in his Lithuanian immigration questionnaire that he had served in the Belarusian army, which he later told LRT.lt was the reason for his deportation and a ban from entering the Schengen zone.
He later spent time in other, non-European Union countries, before travelling to Vietnam.
Veremeichik was also barred from returning to Ukraine after an alleged conflict with the commanders of his unit, the Belarusian Kalinowski Regiment, according to serving and former members of the unit.
Veremeichik took part in the abortive Belarusian revolution in 2020 and later migrated to Ukraine in 2021. He volunteered to fight when Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a Belarusian opposition leader in exile in Lithuania, said in a statement his extradition was "a direct consequence of the repressive policies of the Lukashenko regime". She said that the persecution of opponents "has moved to the international level".
Lithuanian Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė said the country’s intelligence service, the State Security Department (VSD), should explain the reasons for barring Veremeichik from staying in Lithuania and entering the Schengen zone.
According to the minister, the country’s Migration Department makes decisions on residence and visa applications from foreign nationals based on the data provided by the intelligence service.
In a comment to BNS, the VSD said Veremeichik was deemed a threat to the Lithuania’s security.
"According to our reasonable assessment, [his] presence in Lithuania would pose a threat to national security," it said, without disclosing more details.
"It is also possible that attempts to externally escalate the story are part of a regular information operation against Lithuania," the VSD added without providing evidence.
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