Russia Orders U.S. Army Man Expelled
Russia has demanded the immediate expulsion of an American military instructor detained earlier this month near a nuclear weapons plant in Siberia, the Foreign Ministry announced Saturday.
The ministry said it submitted a formal protest Friday to the U.S. Embassy, declaring Army Capt. Jason Lynch “an undesirable person” and demanding that he leave Russia.
U.S. Embassy officials could not immediately be reached for comment. But Lynch’s visit to Russia was scheduled to have ended Friday, and embassy officials told the Moscow Times that he was leaving as scheduled.
Lynch was detained for several hours Aug. 3 by Russian counterintelligence agents who said he was conducting “unauthorized work” near a mining and chemical plant at Krasnoyarsk-26, about 2,000 miles east of Moscow.
Krasnoyarsk-26 has one of the largest nuclear weapons research and production facilities in the former Soviet Union.
The U.S. State Department issued a statement Wednesday saying Lynch was involved in no improper activity.
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