Lithuania is revoking residence permits from Russians who visit home too often. Courts can’t agree on what counts as a valid reason — and families are being torn apart.
For Russian citizens living in Lithuania, traveling too frequently to Russia or Belarus can result in the loss of their residence permits. Under new travel restrictions that came into effect in May 2025, Lithuanian authorities can revoke a Russian national’s temporary residence if they visit their home country or Belarus more than once every three months without an “objective reason.” What migration authorities consider valid grounds for frequent visits remains unclear, and few plaintiffs have succeeded in making their cases in court. Meduza explains how this new law works and how it’s being challenged.
The new rules took effect in May 2025, after roughly a year of parliamentary debate over a bill to amend Lithuania’s 2023 law on restrictive measures related to Russian military aggression against Ukraine.
Proposed by the conservative party Homeland Union — Lithuanian Christian Democrats, the bill sought to revoke temporary residence permits from Russian and Belarusian citizens who travel to their home countries more than once every three months. Lithuania’s intelligence agency, the State Security Department (VSD), proposed an even stricter limit of one trip per year.
Homeland Union lawmakers argued that those who travel frequently to Russia and Belarus are at increased risk of recruitment by intelligence agencies and therefore pose a threat. Speaking in parliament, Homeland Union deputy Arvydas Pocius underscored that “KGB structures control the borders of both Russia and Belarus.” His fellow party member, lawmaker Audronius Ažubalis, argued that fewer people crossing the border would make it easier for Lithuanian authorities to monitor “who is traveling back and forth, and for what reason.”
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While the provision imposing travel restrictions on Belarusian nationals was ultimately dropped, the bill received support from all parties in the Seimas, including the ruling Social Democratic Party of Lithuania. “It’s not normal, because if a person is truly an opposition figure or a dissident, they are being persecuted by the Russian and Belarusian security services; therefore, without a doubt, they cannot travel there safely all the time,” argued Social Democratic Party lawmaker Dovilė Šakalienė, the country’s former defense minister.
Criticism of the bill focused on logistics rather than the rights of Lithuania’s temporary residents. Deputy Foreign Minister Simonas Šatūnas deemed the bill an “unsustainable solution,” arguing that any temporary resident traveling to Russia and Belarus could pose a threat, regardless of citizenship. Meanwhile, Deputy Interior Minister Alicija Ščerbaitė warned that the new regulations would increase the workload of migration and border authorities.
The Seimas passed the bill in April 2025, and the law took effect on May 3. As of January 2026, at least 149 Russian citizens have had their Lithuanian residency revoked for traveling to Russia and Belarus more than once every three months, the Lithuanian Migration Department told Meduza.
Are there other grounds for revoking residence permits?
Russian and Belarusian nationals can also lose their Lithuanian residency if they’re deemed a threat to national security, public order, or public health. However, this measure is applied far more frequently to Belarusians. Lithuania’s Migration Department can either revoke existing permits (both temporary and permanent) or refuse new applications.
In 2022–2023, 900 Belarusians and 254 Russians lost their residency on these grounds. In 2024, 598 Belarusians and 125 Russians lost their residency. The figures spiked in 2025, with 1,721 Russian and Belarusian citizens deemed threats, 1,634 of whom were Belarusians.
As of December 1, 2025, Lithuania was home to 46,538 Belarusians and 5,159 Russians with valid residence permits.
‘Objective reasons’
The law includes two exceptions to the travel restrictions imposed on Russian citizens holding residence permits: if they’re involved in international transport, or if the trips are made for “objective reasons” beyond their control. Homeland Union lawmaker Audronius Ažubalis maintained that these exceptions were “very clearly stated” in the original bill, citing professional drivers and emergency circumstances as examples. “If a tragedy occurs, it’s clearly beyond one’s control,” he said.
Since the law came into force, several Russian citizens have asked the Migration Department to clarify which reasons are considered “objective.” Meduza has learned of five such requests, where the senders primarily asked about exceptions for those visiting sick relatives.
One Russian citizen, who runs the anonymous Telegram channel Teperburg, shared the response she received from the Migration Department in May 2025. In it, the agency’s deputy director, Lucija Voišnis, explained that according to a “preliminary assessment,” visiting even seriously ill family members is not a guaranteed exception. However, she also said this was “only an opinion” and not an official interpretation of the law. The Migration Department, Voišnis added, evaluates the “objective reasons” for each trip on a case-by-case basis.
“It’s essentially a force majeure event, something you couldn’t foresee or change,” the Migration Department’s then-director, Evelina Gudzinskaitė, said in an interview. “For example, the death of a mother or father is an objective reason. You couldn’t have planned for it, and we understand that a son or daughter must attend the funeral.”
“If the person convinces us that there was indeed an objective reason, then we will not revoke their residence permit,” she added.
Speaking to Meduza six months after the law came into effect, a Migration Department representative said that its assessments are based on information provided by the temporary residents themselves. “First, we correspond with the person through our [online] system. But if necessary, we may summon them for an interview and ask them to provide necessary travel documents,” chief adviser Rokas Pukinskas explained.
‘General personal inconveniences’
In July 2025, the Telegram-based outlet Volna reported that Lithuania had revoked its first residence permit under the new law. According to the outlet, the Migration Department handed down inconsistent decisions, deeming one person’s visit to a seriously ill relative an “objective reason” for travel while rejecting a near-identical case.
In late September 2025, exiled human rights lawyer Mikhail Benyash was stripped of his humanitarian residence permit after making two trips to Minsk. He had traveled there to pick up his son for the summer holidays and then to return him to his mother, who lives in Russia. Benyash filed a lawsuit against the Migration Department, arguing that he had an “objective need to travel”; the agency maintained that he could have asked his wife to meet him elsewhere.
In January 2026, an administrative court in Vilnius upheld the decision. A panel of three judges concluded that Benyash’s reasons for travel to Belarus — such as his wife’s lack of a visa — were “general personal inconveniences” rather than unforeseen circumstances.
Benyash filed an appeal with Lithuania’s Supreme Administrative Court. “Here in Lithuania, there’s a palpable shift towards cleansing the country of Russians and Belarusians who arrived after 2020 and 2022. The statistics say as much,” Benyash said in written comments to Meduza. “This attitude can be seen in the rhetoric of politicians, the incitement of hatred based on nationality through propaganda, and systemic discrimination at the national level.”
Meduza is aware of at least two other Russian citizens who lost their residence permits in similar cases. One woman took her son and stepson to see their grandparents for the summer holidays, making two trips to Russia in July 2025. According to publicly available court records, the woman argued that she was fulfilling her parental obligations. However, a court in Šiauliai upheld the revocation, ruling that she had acted illegally. The judges noted that she could have sent the children with their father (her spouse), who is not subject to the travel ban.
Another Russian national, married to a Lithuanian citizen since 2022, had her residence permit revoked for making two trips to Belarus in May 2025. According to court records, she traveled for family reasons, to visit her parents and attend her son’s wedding, and for dental treatment. She told migration authorities that she had been unaware of the new law.
“Since neither war nor a state of emergency has been declared in Lithuania, fundamental human rights, including the right to family life, must be protected,” she wrote in her appeal. A regional court dismissed the claim, stating that the plaintiff could have sought dental care in Lithuania.
The Migration Department’s spokesperson, Rokas Pukinskas, told Meduza that there is no “unified classification” for objective reasons. “Imagine one person’s relative is sick with pneumonia, in the hospital, in critical condition, while another person’s relative is also sick with pneumonia but at home. How should we evaluate such cases?” he asked rhetorically. “What if just a day later, the person at home develops complications and is transferred to intensive care, while the person in the hospital is discharged? Put yourself in our shoes.”
A ‘permanent responsibility’
Nadezhda Uvarova lived in Lithuania for 15 years. She lost her residence permit for making two trips to Russia within 18 minutes. (She asked Meduza to change her name, fearing repercussions for her husband, who still lives in Lithuania.)
“I’m an only child with elderly parents; I have to help them because they are both 70 years old. My husband is a Lithuanian citizen who has a disability, and he also needs my care. That’s why I can’t choose one country, although now I’ve been forced to,” Uvarova told Meduza.
In the spring of 2025, Uvarova’s mother fell ill. She had to travel to Russia weekly to take her mother to doctors’ appointments. On May 5, 2025, Russian border agents stopped Uvarova and her husband. Plainclothes officers — likely FSB — demanded to search her husband’s phone, and he refused, knowing he had “openly supported Ukraine” on social media. The couple was subsequently turned back to Lithuania.
The couple drove to the border town of Kybartai, where they buried the husband’s phone in a jar and left their car. They crossed back into Russia 18 minutes later, and Lithuanian border guards flagged their re-entry as a violation of the new travel rule.
Uvarova’s court appeal against the decision to revoke her residence permit was dismissed. She didn’t see a point in challenging the ruling at a higher level. “They don’t care what the plaintiffs say. Even if it’s your mother or father’s funeral, or your entire town drops dead, they don’t overturn anything. So, I just accepted it,” she said.
Uvarova now says she regrets not leaving Lithuania sooner: her husband visits her in Russia every week, the cost of living is cheaper, and she has found a good job. “It was a big shock for me at first. I lived in Lithuania for 15 years after all. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Lithuanian. But now it’s all over,” Uvarova told Meduza.
Court records show that Uvarova failed to provide any documentation about her mother’s health or proof of the Russian authorities’ interference. The court ruled that caring for an ailing relative is a “permanent responsibility,” not an unpredictable medical emergency that would justify a travel exception. It also noted that Lithuanian authorities cannot solicit documents from “hostile states” and that Uvarova could have obtained the paperwork herself, particularly because she continued traveling to Russia via Poland, according to Polish border authorities.
Uvarova declined to tell Meduza why she never submitted any documents to support her case. She also ignored a follow-up question about whether she was aware that Lithuania had tightened travel restrictions for residents with Russian citizenship.
Family unity
There are, in fact, Russian nationals who have successfully challenged the Migration Department’s decisions to revoke their residence permits.
According to court records, a Russian woman who had lived in Lithuania for 12 years had her residence permit revoked following two trips to Russia in May and July 2025. The woman, whose identity was withheld, appealed the decision before the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court in September.
According to the plaintiff, she traveled to Russia in May for her mother’s birthday, and then again in July to care for her parents. Her mother had been hospitalized with serious injuries following an accident, and her father requires constant care due to disabilities stemming from a stroke. The plaintiff remained in Russia until her mother was discharged from the hospital on August 4. She returned to Lithuania two days later.
Although migration authorities argued that the plaintiff was “not obliged” to travel to Russia, the court ruled in her favor. The ruling noted her long-standing ties to Lithuania (she is fluent in Lithuanian, owns real estate, and co-founded a children’s school with her husband) and that she had severed all financial ties to Russia in 2020–2021. The court also recognized the woman’s “dissenting” political views, noting that she had publicly opposed the war against Ukraine and provided financial aid to Ukrainian refugees, and would therefore risk persecution if returned to Russia.
The court also applied the principle of family unity, noting the plaintiff’s close relationship with her husband and son, both Lithuanian citizens. The ruling noted that if the mother were deported, the family would be broken up or forced to follow her against their will, effectively violating the principles of freedom of movement and the right to family life enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.
The court’s ruling speaks to the lack of consensus on the new law within the Lithuanian judiciary. In the case described above, the court noted that, because the legislation fails to set criteria for assessing “objective reasons” for travel to Russia or Belarus, the Migration Department must bear a higher burden of proof. However, in the case of Nadezhda Uvarova, the court concluded that the legislation eliminates room for interpretation and “guarantees legal clarity.”
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Meduza reported on two other cases in which Lithuanian courts ruled in favor of Russian nationals. In both instances, the plaintiffs’ political views weren’t mentioned in the ruling.
The first case involved a Russian citizen who had been living in Lithuania since 2019, working as a pipefitter. He traveled to Kaliningrad to visit his adult stepdaughter while she was undergoing cancer treatment. The plaintiff argued that his stepdaughter needed “moral and material support,” including help organizing her treatment and surgeries, and that he had brought her medications purchased in Germany.
The migration authorities revoked his residence permit, arguing he had failed to prove that funds could not be sent via bank transfer or that the necessary medication was unavailable in Russia. They further noted that since doctors described the stepdaughter’s post-operative condition as “satisfactory,” he could have decided not to travel to Russia at all.
The Vilnius Regional Administrative Court disagreed, noting that drugs manufactured in the E.U. are difficult to obtain in Russia and that foreign banks no longer process money transfers to the country. The court concluded that the real issue at hand was whether the man had “objective” reasons to visit Russia more than once in three months. The judges ruled that providing “moral and material assistance” to a sick loved one was sufficient grounds for travel, and overturned the Migration Department’s decision.
The second case concerned a Russian national and her son whose residence permits were revoked after two trips to Russia in June and July 2025. The mother traveled to Moscow to reunite with her older son and to obtain a visa for him to travel to Lithuania. This included getting his father’s notarized consent and submitting an application in person at the Lithuanian Embassy.
Although the Migration Department did not consider these “objective reasons” for travel, Lithuania’s Supreme Administrative Court overturned the revocation. The judges cited Article 38 of the Lithuanian Constitution, which defines the family as the foundation of society and the state, as well as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and domestic laws protecting the “best interests” of minors.
The court ruled that migration authorities failed to properly weigh the woman’s significant ties to Lithuania, namely that she is married to a Lithuanian citizen and that they have a young child together who holds dual Lithuanian and Russian citizenship.
In her appeal, the plaintiff also requested that the court recommend legislative amendments to include exceptions for family reunification. The court declined, noting that such recommendations are beyond its jurisdiction.
‘You just sit and wait until you can leave’
After Lithuania imposed new travel restrictions on Russian nationals, a Vilnius-based initiative group filed a petition with the European Parliament. They argued that the restrictions violate E.U. human rights charters and constitute citizenship-based discrimination. The group specifically highlighted the law’s failure to define “objective reasons” for travel, creating legal uncertainty and giving government agencies broad discretion.
A member of the group told Meduza that Lithuanian human rights activists have been unsympathetic toward Russian residents. “They did not find mutual understanding,” this person explained. “The [Russian] immigrants came away feeling that these activists have a ‘unique’ understanding of human rights, which can be roughly formulated as: ‘You have a Russian passport, which means you should bear collective responsibility along with other Russians.’”
A special committee of the European Parliament will examine the petition. But even if the parliament sides with the activists, its decision will have no legal force.
For residents like Anna Talanina (name changed), who gathered signatures for the petition, the law creates difficult choices. After her grandmother was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2025, the Migration Department informed Talanina that “a close relative’s serious illness is not considered a valid reason” for travel.
Talanina’s grandmother died two weeks before her next permitted trip. She traveled to Russia for the funeral anyway; why Lithuanian border guards did not report her to the migration authorities remains unclear. (She requested anonymity for fear of losing her residence permit.) According to Talanina, it also remains unclear whether the three-month window is counted from the moment of departure or re-entry into Lithuania.
While she claimed migration officials had given her inconsistent answers, the Migration Department told Meduza that the day a case comes under review is considered the end date of the three-month rolling window.
Migration authorities have recognized the death of a parent as an “objective reason” for travel. At the same time, a spokesperson declined to tell Meduza how often the department receives reports from border guards. “That’s internal information,” Rokas Pukinskas said.
Talanina says the law has affected her relationship with her family, forcing her to choose which milestones to attend, as one permitted trip rules out a potential emergency visit. “You just sit and wait until you can leave. Meanwhile, my family has no way to visit me because Lithuania doesn’t issue Schengen visas [to Russian and Belarusian citizens],” she added. (Lithuania has also denied entry to Russian tourists with Schengen visas from other countries since 2022.)
The travel restrictions for Russians with temporary residence permits will remain in effect until May 2, 2026, though the law allows their extension.
Story by Alena Dergacheva
Abridged translation by Eilish Hart