A court in Russia’s Pskov region has sentenced 42-year-old Estonian citizen Rando in a case over illegal border crossing under Part 1 of Article 322 of the Russian Criminal Code. His lawyer, Yury Abdirov, told Mediazona that the man was given a fine and then released directly in the courtroom.
According to the defense, Rando will not have to pay the fine because the court ruled that the punishment had already been served, taking into account the roughly six months he spent in pretrial detention. After his release, his belongings were returned and he was given money for a bus ticket to Pskov, from where he was expected to travel toward the Estonian border.
“He was happy, truly happy. He cried in court and asked to be released,” Abdirov said. An acquaintance of Rando also confirmed to Mediazona that he had already called her after regaining freedom.
Mediazona and Eesti Ekspress had previously reported in detail on two Estonian citizens, Rando, 42, and Daniil, 25, who independently crossed the border over the ice of Lake Peipus in late January and early February and asked Russia for international protection.
According to the two outlets, Rando had repeatedly undergone lengthy treatment in a psychiatric clinic in Estonia. Relatives said that after a serious childhood injury, he often could not control his behavior and needed specialist supervision. From January 2025 at the latest, they said, he began accusing Estonian guardianship authorities of systematic abuse, and over time those ideas became obsessive.
In early January 2026, Rando forced his way into the Valga municipal offices and began agitatedly presenting his claims; police eventually intervened. As he left, he reportedly said he was “Russian by nationality” and was ready to seek justice in Russia. On January 26, Russian border guards detained him as he walked across the ice of Lake Peipus toward the Pskov region at night, using, his lawyer said, the lights of a cell tower on the Russian shore for direction.
Abdirov says his client wanted to move to Russia “for a better life and justice” and describes him as a naive and kind person with a heightened sense of social justice. The second Estonian, Daniil, who was detained on February 2, is now in a Russian psychiatric clinic, according to his mother. In May, he wrote from detention that he and Rando had been taken for inpatient psychiatric evaluation at a clinic in St. Petersburg where, he said, “they did not even ask anything, they just gave an injection.”