Lithuania has granted asylum to Roman Ruzhechko, a suspect in a Russian oil pipeline contamination probe. The country’s Migration Department has confirmed that the former CEO of Transneft's Samara terminal was granted asylum in March. Ruzhechko was detained in Lithuania last year after fleeing from criminal prosecution in Russia but was later released from custody by a court.

Russian prosecutors believe the 40-year-old oil executive was one of the masterminds of an alleged conspiracy which disrupted oil deliveries from Russia to the West, including Poland and Germany, in April 2019. Russian officials reported they found out that millions of tonnes of crude oil were tainted with organic chloride. The scandal caused the massive Druzhba pipeline to be blocked for weeks. Russia has pledged to pay compensation, which might reach billions of dollars.

A Russian court issued an arrest warrant in absentia against Ruzhechko in May 2019.   

Ruzhechko has sought refuge in Lithuania and was arrested in the Baltic country in July 2019 on a Russian-issued international warrant. Russian authorities also arrested four other people and put five under house arrest over the scandal. In addition to Ruzhechko, a CEO of a minor oil transport company Samartransneft-Terminal, Russia also issued an international arrest warrant for the founder of oil company Petroneft, Roman Trushev.

Trushev has told media said that the investigation against him was "looking for scapegoats”. He added that the amount of oil delivered by his company was too small to do this much damage.

Lithuania has already clashed with Russia over a similar case in 2006, when it refused to extradite a former employee of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Yukos oil empire. The lawyers for banker Igor Babenko argued that the fraud charges against him in Russia were politically motivated. A Lithuanian court eventually granted Babenko political asylum.