Russia detained a Swedish national and a Japanese journalist within days of one another as former president Dmitry Medvedev called on Moscow to replenish its "exchange pool" of Western citizens to trade for Russians held abroad.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Wednesday it arrested the Swedish citizen in the Sebezh district of Pskov region, near the borders with Belarus and Latvia.
He is accused of entering Russia under cover of joining the Russian military while intending to carry out "sabotage and terrorist attacks" on military sites.
The FSB said it established that from February to June the detainee served as commander of a drone section in the 24th separate assault battalion of Ukraine's Aidar unit — a volunteer formation that emerged during Russia's initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 which the Kremlin has designated a "terrorist organisation," a common domestic classification aimed at Ukrainian units.
He had allegedly admitted to serving in the unit. The FSB said it holds documents confirming his participation in combat against Russian forces, and that he faces charges of illegal border crossing, organising the activities of a terrorist organisation and serving as a mercenary. His name has not been disclosed.
Sweden's government has not commented. Moscow's claims could not be independently verified.
'You have to howl like a wolf'
The second arrest — that of Yuki Imai, a journalist for Japan's Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper — took place on Sakhalin Island as he was preparing to leave the country, the FSB said.
He is accused of gathering information on Russia's defence capabilities at the direction of Japanese intelligence services.
Japan summoned Russia's ambassador in Tokyo Nikolai Nozdrev on Wednesday. Kimitake Nakamura, head of the foreign ministry's European affairs department, lodged a protest both over the arrest and Moscow's decision to announce it without first informing the Japanese government.
Tokyo has demanded consular access to Imai and assurances of humane treatment.
The Committee to Protect Journalists called for his immediate release, warning that journalists "must not be used as a bargaining chip in broader geopolitical disputes."
The organisation estimates that at least 30 journalists are currently held in Russia in connection with their work.
The arrests followed Medvedev's post on Telegram on 9 October calling for Russia to increase its "exchange pool" of foreign nationals it uses to negotiate the release of its citizens deemed useful to the regime.
Writing after the arrest in Montenegro of Mikhail Zvinchuk, a Kremlin propagandist and founder of Rybar — a Telegram channel close to Russia's military and security services — Medvedev said Moscow might need to detain more Western nationals to secure the release of Russians held abroad.
"Now, quite likely, we will have to fill up the exchange pool with European and American idiots in order to pull our own people out," he wrote.
"There is no other way: if you live with wolves, you have to howl like a wolf." Zvinchuk has since been returned to Russia.
Using people as bargaining chips
Russia has for years detained foreign nationals on charges including espionage and drug smuggling, a practice its critics describe as the taking of hostages for exchange.
The most recent large-scale swap took place in August 2024, when 26 people were freed in a multinational exchange: Russia released 16 detainees, and Western countries handed back 10.
Among those Russia released were Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, sentenced to 16 years in a high-security prison on espionage charges, and former US Marine Paul Whelan, convicted on the same charges and given the same sentence.
Germany obtained the release of Rico Krieger, who had been sentenced to death in Belarus, and Patrick Schabel, detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport over cannabis-infused gummy sweets.
Russia received back, among others, Vadim Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence in Germany for the assassination of Georgian national Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in a Berlin park in 2019, Artem and Anna Dulcev, accused of spying in Slovenia under the guise of South American art dealers, and Pablo González aka Pavel Rubtsov, a Russian-born Spanish journalist who had been held in Poland on espionage charges since February 2022.
Additional sources • AFP, AP