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Russian defector swims 20 kms seeking asylum into Hokkaido

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24 Aug 2021 04:08:09 GMT9
24 Aug 2021 04:08:09 GMT9

Arab News Japan

TOKYO: A Russian man, resident of a disputed island between Japan and Russia, defected to Hokkaido after swimming about 20 kilometers in high seas. He told the Japanese police upon arrival he was seeking asylum, Russian news agencies and Asahi Shinbun reported.

The man is a resident of Kunashiri island, one of four disputed islands administered by Russia but also claimed by Japan which Japan calls the Northern Territories, off the northeast coast of Hokkaido.

After his arrival in Shibetsu town, Hokkaido police took him into custody and later transferred him to the Sapporo Regional Immigration Services Bureau of the Japanese government’s Immigration Services Agency, Asahi newspaper reported.

According to Russia’s Interfax news agency, authorities of the Southern Kuril District of Russia’s Sakhalin State, which administers Kunashiri, the man is around 40.

He is originally from Izhevsk, the Udmurt Republic, in the Urals in western Russia.

Izhevsk is known for manufacturing the AK-47 assault rifle.

The man reportedly moved to Kunashiri three years ago and acquired a plot in the island’s southernmost district under a Russian program that offers 1 hectare of land in the Far East region for free to applicants.

The district is the closest part of the island to Shibetsu.

He lived in the village of Dubovoe and elsewhere, occasionally working as a tractor driver. The man “has not been seen since Aug. 17,” the local Russian official told Interfax.

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