A California man who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for allegedly attacking police during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot has claimed asylum in the former Soviet republic of Belarus. Evan Neumann, 48, was charged in July on six separate counts, including assaulting officers and violent entry, after being identified from footage of the storming of Congress. But by then he had already sold his house in the Bay Area and fled to Europe, initially hiding out in Ukraine before deciding to cross over into Belarus—often described as “Europe’s last dictatorship.”

His hosts appear delighted to have him. Belarus state TV portrayed him as a victim of government persecution and described him as “the same type of simple American whose shops were burned by Black Lives Matter activists.” In an interview with the channel, reported by the Moscow Times, Neumann said he had decided to leave Ukraine after finding himself being tailed by security officials. He told how he encountered wild boar and snakes as he made his way across the swampy marshland dividing Ukraine and Belarus, before being arrested on the border on Aug. 15. He said that the charges against him were “unfounded.”