MOSCOW. Feb 16 (Interfax) - The Russian Foreign Ministry has issued a warning to Russian citizens traveling abroad about the threat of being detained or arrested in third countries under warrants issued by U.S. law enforcement or special services.
"We reaffirm that a real threat of being detained or arrested at the request of the U.S. law enforcement agencies and special services in third countries persists," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in its report on Thursday.
"We strongly recommend that Russian citizens thoroughly weigh all risks when planning trips abroad, especially if there are reasons to presume that U.S. law enforcement agencies might have issues with them. This applies primarily to visits to countries that have extradition treaties with the U.S. (the list of such countries is available on the Department of State website)," the ministry said.
"Despite our repeated calls for normalizing Russian-U.S. cooperation between the relevant authorities on the basis of the bilateral 1999 Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, instances of an unacceptable practice of 'hunting' for Russians worldwide keep being registered," the document said.
"The number of such incidents has exceeded 30. In 2016, four Russian citizens were extradited to the U.S.: M.V. Senakh, A.Ye. Sergeyev, and M.V. Serov from Finland and M.E. Vartanyan from Norway. Among the latest situations is the recent arrest of S.V. Lisov in Spain," the Russian Foreign Ministry said.