A Colombian man who was allegedly planning attacks in Lithuania is also a Russian citizen, independent Russian media Agentstvo reported on Wednesday evening.
The Colombian police on Tuesday named the suspect as 21-year-old Jesús Ramos Santos, wanted in Lithuania as part of a terrorism investigation. According to the case file cited by the police, he arrived in Lithuania from Russia and was planning attacks on Ukraine-bound drones stored in the northern city of Šiauliai, which also houses the NATO air policing mission.
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According to Agentstvo, Santos grew up in St Petersburg and has Russian citizenship, which was also confirmed to the reporters by his mother, Amaya Santos.
The family moved to Russia when Santos was four years old, the mother said, adding that she married a Russian man and had three children. Agentstvo reports that the woman became a Russian citizen in 2016.
Santos lived in St Petersburg until 2022, leaving the country after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in fear of being drafted, the mother said.
He then moved to Spain, where he also applied for asylum. Santos returned to Russia in 2023 to help his mother, who had been diagnosed with blood cancer.
He attempted to return to Spain via the Baltic states in September 2024, the mother claimed. Santos was then detained in Bulgaria and charged with terrorism and subsequently deported to Colombia in November, she added.
LRT could not independently verify the information.
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