Desnitsky wrote about the move on social media on 8 December. Responding to a question from Sota, he declined to comment but stated that “neither the Republic of Lithuania nor any other EU state” had “ever had any claims against him, nor do they now.”
Dismissal from Vilnius University
In 2023, Vilnius University terminated its contract with the professor. This followed a campaign launched by Darya (Daiva) Nurieva. According to Nurieva, Desnitsky did not advocate the principle of “an eye for an eye” but rather “that Russia receive Christian forgiveness.” She also published his 2012 article in which the professor described Lithuania’s incorporation into the USSR as annexation, not occupation.
Nurieva’s Position
Nurieva, by her own admission, previously promoted the ideas of the “Russian world,” wrote poems praising Russia and tsarism. Now she describes herself as “a Russified Lithuanian on her father’s side and a Ukrainian on her mother’s side, who came to Lithuania from the Russian Federation about eight years ago as a repatriate, but in essence it was political asylum.”
At the same time, Nurieva closely monitors Russian emigration in Lithuania and, by her account, cannot forgive local Russian-language media for refusing to cooperate with her: “When local editors of Russian-language media deleted from my texts what seemed to them negative, or simply refused to publish materials on sensitive topics, I suspected there was some unspoken restriction: about local Russians, as about the deceased—either good or nothing.”
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