RUSSIA REMANDS US SOLDIER IN CUSTODY OVER ALLEGED THEFT

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Agency Report

A US soldier who was apprehended on suspicion of stealing was placed under arrest on Tuesday and placed under remand in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, Russia, until July.

The soldier, identified as Gordon Black by a Vladivostok court, was being held on criminal charges, according to the US Army.

Citing the case’s sensitivity, it suppressed specifics.

Black’s imprisonment raises the total number of US nationals detained in Russia during the Washington-Moscow spat over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

According to state-run Ria Novosti news agency, Black was arrested on May 2 and would be remanded in pre-trial detention until July 2, according to Primorye Regional Court spokeswoman Elena Oleneva.

According to Vladivostok city police, they have taken into custody a 34-year-old foreign national and filed a criminal complaint for theft that seriously injured the victim, a crime that carries a maximum five-year jail sentence.

According to them, the suspect is being held in a pre-trial detention facility located in the city.

According to the police, the man started seeing a Russian woman while she was employed in South Korea.

They communicated via the internet, and on April 10, he paid her a visit.

The couple had a “conflict” and the man left.

Afterwards, the woman found money was missing and called police, who tracked down the man in a hotel, as he was preparing to fly out to the United States.

Russian newspaper Izvestia reported earlier, citing a source, that the man had stolen 200,000 rubles ($2,200) and beaten the woman up.

A Russian foreign ministry representative in Vladivostok told TASS state news agency that the case was not linked to politics.

“This case is not related to politics or espionage. As far as we understand this is a purely domestic crime

“Therefore the foreign ministry branch in Vladivostok is not following the US citizen’s fate closely.”

RIA Novosti quoted US Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith as saying the man’s family had been informed and he was receiving consular support.

Citing US officials, NBC News reported that the soldier had been stationed in South Korea and was heading back to the United States when he stopped off in Russia without requesting permission from his superiors.

Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, representing Texas, said in a statement posted on X that he was “deeply concerned by reports that a US Army officer has been detained in Russia”.

“Putin has a long history of holding American citizens hostage,” he said of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“A warning to all Americans — as the State Department has said, it is not safe to travel to Russia.”

Russian authorities have arrested several US citizens in recent years.

Critics accuse Moscow of using detainees as bargaining chips to exchange for Russians jailed in the United States.

Separately, a Moscow district court on Tuesday sentenced a US citizen to 10 days in detention for petty hooliganism.

REN TV reported the man had climbed through the window of a children’s library and fallen asleep there while drunk.

It said the man was staying with friends in Moscow on a tourist visa.

AFP