Russian anti-war activist Ilya Zernov has left Serbia after the border police at Belgrade's international airport denied him entry to the country, his lawyer told RFE/RL.
Zernov, 19, had arrived in the Serbian capital from Germany on November 4 to attend a trial over an attack on the activist by three Serbian men, including a Kremlin supporter earlier this year. The trial is set to begin on November 6.
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Zernov said that a passport control officer at the Nikola Tesla airport sent him to the waiting area, where he was subsequently told he was barred from entering Serbia.
"They didn't explain why. They just told me: 'You know,'" Zernov told RFE/RL.
Speaking to RFE/RL on November 5, Zernov’s lawyer Cedomir Stojkovic accused Serbian authorities of “preventing the judiciary from prosecuting [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's hooligans in Serbia” and “thus…protecting Moscow's interests in Serbia.”
Serbia’s Interior Ministry has not yet responded to RFE/RL’s request for comment.
Zernov was attacked in Belgrade on January 29 when he was trying to paint over a large mural that said "Death to Ukraine." Describing the attack at the time, Zernov said the men ordered him to stop and punched him in the ear. The attack reportedly left the teenager with a perforated eardrum.
Zernov claimed that the leader of the pro-Russian ultra-right organization Serbian Right, Misa Vacic, was among the attackers. Vacic denies the allegation.
Zernov, a native of the southwestern Russian city of Kazan, had publicly opposed Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine while still in Russia. He left the country and arrived in Serbia in March 2022.
Serbia, which has long been an ally of Russia, grants Russian citizens visa-free entry. Serbia's Interior Ministry told RFE/RL in May that nearly 30,000 Russian citizens had been granted temporary residence permits in the Balkan country.
Putin critics are said to be under the scrutiny of Serbia’s security services. In July, Pyotr Nikitin, a Russian pro-democracy activist who resided in Serbia, was banned from entering the country upon returning from a trip abroad.
Nikitin, the founder of the nongovernmental Russian Democratic Society, called the decision “arbitrary and illegal.”
In September, two Russian anti-war activists left Serbia after their temporary residence permits had been revoked by Belgrade authorities.