Lithuania granted political asylum to Russian journalist Evgeny Titov

The Lithuanian authorities granted political asylum to journalist Yevgeny Titov, who left Russia in the summer of 2016. This was reported by Interfax with reference to the Lithuanian Migration Department.

The director of the department, Evelina Gudzinskaite, confirmed the information and clarified that Titov had received refugee status.

Titov made the decision to leave Russia because of possible persecution: the journalist fears that he could be prosecuted for espionage, as he collaborated with Lithuanian radio and television and traveled as a journalist to eastern Ukraine.

Earlier, the District Court of Vilnius upheld the decision of the department to deny Titov asylum, considering it unreasonable. The journalist appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Lithuania.

• Evgeny Titov worked as a correspondent for Novaya Gazeta in the Kuban, collaborated with Radio Liberty, and was the creator and presenter of the NoGa TV channel. He dealt with topics related to political persecution (in particular, the case of the Kuban public figure and teacher Mikhail Savva), conducted journalistic investigations.
• In October 2015, they tried to attack Titov . This happened the day after he, along with the film crew of the Swedish TV channel STV, visited the construction site of the Kerch bridge in Crimea.
• When Titov was about to go to the Temryuk district of the Krasnodar Territory to continue the investigation, unknown persons began sending messages to journalists that he had been killed in Temryuk. In particular, Arkady Babchenko received such a message. According to OVD-Info, "Rostov trolls" — people allegedly associated with the Rostov Center for Combating Extremism — were involved in sending out such messages.
• Titov told Radio Liberty that he was “threatened” in Russia in connection with his journalistic activities and, above all, with the investigation into the construction of the Kerch bridge. According to him, several attempts were made to open a criminal case against him when he covered the events related to the elections.