US ‘detained Russian citizen following arrest of Marine’
THE United States detained a Russian citizen, according to the Russian foreign ministry, a day after Moscow arrested the former US Marine Paul Whelan on suspicion of spying.
Mr Whelan, a dual British national, was taken into custody by Russia’s Federal Security Service on Dec 28. His family have said he is innocent and that he was in Moscow to attend a wedding.
The ministry said the United States detained Russian citizen Dmitry Makarenko on Dec 29 on the Northern Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the Pacific Ocean, and transferred him to Florida.
Mr Makarenko, thought to be 39 or 40, had arrived on Saipan with his wife, children and elderly parents, the Russian statement said, and was reportedly detained by the FBI at the airport.
The US Embassy in Moscow could not immediately be reached for comment. A State Department spokesman in Washington referred a request for comment to the Department of Justice, which did not immediately respond. Papers filed in US District Court for the Southern District of Florida show Mr Makarenko was accused in June 2017 by federal prosecutors of conspiring with another man, Vladimir Nevidomy, to export defence articles including night-vision scopes from the United States to Russia without US approval.
Nevidomy pleaded guilty in June 2018 and was sentenced to 26 months in prison.
Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, said Washington had asked Moscow to explain Whelan’s arrest. Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, told Russia on Friday that individuals should not be used as diplomatic pawns.