Russian state agency employee detained in Spain at US request
Olesya Krasilova, a Russian citizen and employee of the state agency All-Russian Plant Quarantine Center, was detained while departing from Tenerife airport, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday, February 21. This happened on February 14, when the Russian was returning from a business trip, which she went to on February 10, as part of an official Russian delegation, the Foreign Ministry said. The organization in which she works is subordinate to the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor).
The Russian woman is currently held in a Tenerife detention center. The materials of her case were sent to the court, the Foreign Ministry adds. The Russian Embassy in Spain has been in contact with the Russian citizen and is trying to find out all the circumstances of the incident. The detained was visited by Russian diplomats who gave her "warm clothes and personal hygiene products."
The Russian Foreign Ministry assumes that Krasilova's detention may be due to "some request by the American side" and calls it "another case of unacceptable practices of "hunting" for Russian citizens around the world by the US authorities."
The Russian news agency RIA Novosti writes, with reference to the mother of the detainee, that before working at the "All-Russian Center for Plant quarantine" "a woman worked in the international department of the Russian Embassy in Washington at the fingerprinting unit."
The Russian Foreign Ministry had already recommended that Russians refrain from foreign trips.