Two men detained in Alaska after boating from Russia to St. Lawrence Island

Two men were detained in Alaska after sailing a small boat from the settlement of Egvekinot in Russia’s Chukotka to St. Lawrence Island (USA), covering over 400 kilometres, Alaska News Service reports.

On 4 October, they landed near the community of Gambell.

“These two individuals that came over from Russia in a boat and were detained in Gambell, my understanding is, they are in Anchorage now being dealt with by federal authorities,” Governor of Alaska Mike Dunleavy said. “We don’t anticipate a continual stream of individuals or a flotilla of individuals. We have no indication that’s going to happen, so this may be a one-off.”

The men told the locals that they were “fleeing the Russian military”, the news outlet writes. The situation is being handled by the US Department of Homeland Security.

On 4 October, Forbes Russia reported, citing sources in the Kremlin, that approximately 700,000 people had left Russia since mobilisation was announced. Another source of the media outlet suggested that nearly a million people had left Russia at that point. It is not known how many people left for tourist purposes and how many plan to return.

Earlier, Kazakhstan’s interior minister stated that about 200,000 Russians had entered the country since mobilisation began. Georgian authorities report that from 17 September until 29 September, nearly 94,000 Russian citizens had entered the country. Moreover, EU border management agency Frontex estimated that over the past week, 66,000 Russian nationals had entered the EU, which is about 30% higher than the week before.