MOSCOW, April 7 (RAPSI) - A Lithuanian court ruled that Russian national Yuri Mel, suspected of involvement in clashes in January 1991 after declaration of independence from the USSR, will stay in detention, RIA Novosti reported on Tuesday.

On March 12, 2014, Mel was arrested on Kaliningrad's border with Lithuania. Two days later he was placed in detention. The court has repeatedly extended his detention.

Lithuania's Prosecutor General's Office has declared 79 citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine suspects in the criminal case opened in the aftermath of the clashes.

They are suspected of battery, murder, endangering other's wellbeing, as well as unlawful military actions against civilians.

A court in Lithuania has issued European arrest warrants for the suspects who reside outside Lithuania.

Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union on March 11, 1990.

Moscow denounced the move as illegal and put an economic blockade on the country between April and late June 1990.

In January 1991, a series of unauthorized protests swept across Lithuania after which Soviet military forces entered the republic. On the night of January 13, Soviet armored vehicles and tanks rolled into the center of Vilnius. Soviet troops clashed with civilians at a local TV tower, leaving 14 dead and over 600 injured.

Security personnel later claimed that the clashes were a result of a provocation, and that the victims were killed by sharpshooters.