This is something the government and the US military could have done without. An American soldier, arrested last week in the Russian Far East, was placed in preventive detention until July 2 in a “theft” case, a court in Vladivostok announced on Tuesday, May 7. He faces up to five years in prison, according to the Russian penal code.
The soldier in question, Master Sergeant Gordon Black, was originally deployed to South Korea, according to the American media NBC News. At the end of his mission, when he was due to return to the United States, he went to Russia on his own, and not as part of an official mission, several American officials said. More specifically, he went to the city of Vladivostok to visit a woman he met in South Korea, and with whom he was having a romantic relationship, without the authorization of his superiors. American officials have confirmed that he is currently in pre-trial detention, accused of “theft” against a woman.
NBC News says it is not possible at this time to determine whether these accusations came from the same woman he was visiting. For their part, several Russian Telegram channels assure that Gordon Black would have argued with the latter, and that he would be accused of having assaulted her and of having stolen nearly 200,000 rubles, or approximately 2,200 dollars.
Worrying precedents of arrests
This affair seems for the moment to cause a certain embarrassment on the American side, with an inability to be able to discern fact from falsehood. Because if soldier Gordon Black did indeed travel to Russia outside of his military prerogatives, for a rather opaque personal relationship, the cases of arrests and very heavy convictions of American citizens by the Russian justice system for fictitious and sometimes absurd reasons are legion. these last years. First of all, we can think of the journalist Evan Gershkovich, working for the Wall Street Journal, who was arrested in March 2023 by Russian security services while reporting in the Urals. He is accused of espionage, a crime punishable by 20 years in prison; accusations that he rejects, as do his family, his newspaper and Washington.
Another example concerned Brittney Griner, an American basketball player, arrested in February 2022 at Moscow airport, then sentenced to nine years in prison for possession of an e-cigarette and liquid containing cannabis. She was eventually released ten months later, in a prisoner exchange with a Russian arms dealer.
This time, the American general staff seems to be taking a little time before accusing Russia head-on. Unlike several other cases, first and foremost that concerning Evan Gershkovich, Moscow also affirms that this one “is not linked to politics or espionage”, assured this Tuesday the representation of the Russian Ministry of Defense. Foreign Affairs in Vladivostok. U.S. Army spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith said that “the Russian Federation informed the United States Department of State of the soldier’s detention in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The Army has notified the soldier’s family, and the U.S. State Department is providing appropriate consular support in Russia.” Before adding that “given the sensitive nature of this matter, we are not able to provide further details at this time.”
The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the American House of Representatives, Michael McCaul, for his part said he was “deeply concerned” by the announcement of the detention of this American soldier, in a message shared on (ex-Twitter). “Putin has a history of taking American citizens hostage. A warning to all Americans: as the State Department has said, it is not safe to travel to Russia,” he said. added. A new story which could poison Moscow-Washington relations, already extremely tense since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.