A former political prisoner tried to leave Russia. After Belarus sent him back, he believes security officers tore pages from his passport so he ‘wouldn’t escape again.’
Security officers tore pages from former political prisoner Ivan Lyubshin’s passport, he told RusNews. Lyubshin faces another prison sentence after trying to leave Russia.
Lyubshin said pages 9–12 had been torn out. He discovered the missing pages a few days ago while visiting a bank. A passport missing one or more pages is invalid.
Lyubshin believes security officers tore out the pages so that he “wouldn’t escape again.” “I think Russian border guards did it at the border, together with the Kaluga ‘E Center’ [anti-extremism] officers, so I wouldn’t escape again. My passport was handled by Belarusian border guards, Belarusian police officers, KGB officers, and then the FSB officers, who were very upset that I’d slipped past them without any trouble. The Kaluga officers who came to the border to get me later told me that,” he said.
In 2020, Lyubshin was sentenced to five years in prison over a social media comment about an explosion at the FSB’s regional headquarters in Arkhangelsk. Lyubshin called Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who carried out the bombing, “at least the hero of the week” (he said he meant that Zhlobitsky had become the subject of news coverage). Memorial recognized the Kaluga resident as a political prisoner.
Lyubshin was released in March 2025. He was required to remain under court-ordered supervision for another eight years, but in spring 2026, he traveled to Minsk, intending to fly from there to Yerevan. He planned to pick up a French humanitarian visa that had already been approved and emigrate to France.
Belarusian border guards detained Lyubshin at the airport and returned him to Russia, where authorities opened a criminal case against him for evading court-ordered supervision. Prosecutors have requested a seven-month prison sentence. Since May, Lyubshin has served two jail terms for administrative offenses.
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