Ivan Lyubshin reported torn-out pages in his passport after being detained at the border with Belarus

Lyubshin believes that Russian border guards at the border with Belarus, together with employees of the Kaluga Center “E”, damaged the passport so that he would “not escape again”. According to him, the document first passed through Belarusian border guards, police officers, and KGB employees, and then through FSB officers.

He added that the Kaluga operatives who came to pick him up at the border said they were “very upset that I drove past them without hindrance”. Lyubshin also said that the Russian border guards did not let him leave the border area for a long time.

Usually, he said, it is enough to show a Russian or Belarusian passport to cross. The detention of Lyubshin while trying to leave Belarus for Yerevan became known in early May.

He said that he planned to obtain a French humanitarian visa in the Armenian capital, which had already been approved at the embassy. After the detention, Lyubshin has already served two administrative arrests, and in August seven months in a penal colony were requested for him.

Ivan Lyubshin was released from the penal colony in March 2025. In spring 2020, he was sentenced to five years and two months in prison in a case on justifying terrorism.

The reason for the prosecution was his comment in which he called 17-year-old Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who carried out an explosion in the building of the Arkhangelsk FSB directorate, a “hero”.

Sources

• Mediazona