“A man from South Korea has been arrested in Russia on suspicion of being a spy, according to the news. ” South Korean officials have said that they arrested someone and are talking with other countries to bring them back.
Baek Won-soon was taken into custody in Vladivostok, a city in the far-east, earlier this year. He is currently in a jail in Moscow.
It is thought that he is the first person from South Korea to be arrested in Russia in a long time for spying.
We don’t know much about his situation. The foreign ministry of South Korea is still investigating and they can’t say much about it yet. Its officials were trying to give help to people from their country who were in trouble in a foreign country.
Russian state media Tass reported that an unnamed official said Mr Baek is accused of giving secret information to foreign intelligence services.
Someone in Russia’s far east, who doesn’t want to be identified, said they know Mr. They told the news that Mr. Baek has been helping North Korean workers in Russia and helping them get away.
Media in South Korea said that the government of Seoul was only told last month by Russian officials about the arrest.
Yonhap, a news source from South Korea, said Mr. Baek was taken into custody by Russia’s Federal Security Service in January when he got to Vladivostok from China.
The store reported that he is a religious worker and he was with his wife. She was also arrested, but then let go. The news source reported that people think she is in South Korea now.
Mr Baek was recently arrested by Russian authorities, which is part of a pattern of them arresting foreigners since the war in Ukraine started two years ago. Moscow is being accused of arresting people from other countries to use them for political reasons or to exchange them for prisoners.
Some of the people involved are an American man who works for the Wall Street Journal. He was arrested last March for spying. There is also a Russian-US journalist who was accused of spreading untrue information about the Russian military.
Tass said that Mr. Baek and Mr. Gershkovich are both in the Lefortovo Prison. The court decided to keep him in jail until June, according to the Russian news agency.
South Korea and its Western allies have criticized Russia for invading Ukraine and agreed to impose sanctions on Moscow. At the same time, Russia and North Korea have become closer friends. Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong un met last year and experts think they made deals to share military technology.
Russian and North Korean officials had some meetings in Vladivostok last year.