Bartkevichyus Valdas (Valdas Bartkevičius)

In mid-November 2024, in the Kursk region, Lithuanian citizen, political activist, and assistant to a member of the Seimas of Lithuania, Valdis Bartkevičius, was accused of publicly justifying terrorism, financing terrorism, illegally crossing the state border of the Russian Federation, looting, desecrating symbols of Russian military glory, and damaging military burial sites, monuments, and other memorial structures and objects located on the territory of the Russian Federation that perpetuate the memory of those who died defending the Fatherland during the Great Patriotic War. According to the Russian investigation, on November 11, 2024, Bartkevičius urinated on the Monument to the Warriors-Liberators located in the village of Kazachya Loknya in the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region. Earlier, Bartkevičius spoke about the need for a complete ban on the Russian language and Russian national culture in Lithuania and other European countries, in December 2023 he desecrated the monument to the poet Alexander Pushkin in Vilnius, and in March 2024 he publicly justified the terrorist attack at the Crocus City Hall in the Moscow region. On July 22, 2025, the 2nd Western Military District Court found Valdis Bartkevichius guilty and sentenced him in absentia to 23 years in prison, with the first 5 years to be served in prison, and the remaining part of the punishment in a strict regime correctional colony. The court also deprived Bartkevichius of the right to administer websites and channels on the Internet for 5 years.