 A U.S. citizen has been arrested on drug charges in Russia, NPR reports. The news about the arrest came even as Washington has sought to win the release of jailed Americans Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich. The State Department said last month that it had put multiple offers on the table, but they had been rejected by the Russian government.
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Analysts have pointed out that Moscow could be using jailed Americans as bargaining chips amid U.S.-Russian tensions that soared when Russia sent troops into Ukraine. At least two U.S. citizens arrested in Russia in recent years — including WNBA star Brittney Griner — have been exchanged for Russians jailed in the U.S.
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There is scarce information about the newest arrest, about a man named Robert Woodland Romanov, which was reported by the press service of the Moscow courts. No details of the accusations were available. Russian media noted that the name of the accused matched that of a U.S. citizen interviewed a few years ago, who said he was born in the Perm region in the Ural Mountains in 1991 and adopted by an American couple when he was two, then returned to Russia to find his birth mother and was working as an English teacher at a local school.