Japan Protests Russia's Detention of Journalist Accused of Spying

Tokyo summoned Russia's ambassador after a Japanese reporter was arrested in Russia's far east and accused of collecting military intelligence.

The Japanese government on Wednesday protested Russia's detention of a Japanese journalist accused of spying, calling on Moscow to provide "humane, fair, and impartial" treatment to the reporter.

The protest came after Russia's main security agency said on Tuesday that the authorities had detained a Japanese journalist, accusing him of collecting intelligence on Russia's military capabilities. The journalist, whose name has not been released, worked as a foreign correspondent for the Hokkaido Shimbun, a newspaper based on Japan's northernmost island.

Japan's Foreign Ministry said it had summoned Russia's ambassador to Japan, Nikolay Stanislavovich Nozdrev, to lodge a "strong protest." The ministry said in a statement that Japan had received "no explanation whatsoever regarding the detained national."

Russia's Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., said in a statement on Tuesday that the journalist was arrested in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on the Pacific island of Sakhalin in eastern Russia. It said the journalist had been transported to Moscow, where he was remanded into pretrial custody by the Lefortovo District Court.

The F.S.B. accused the journalist of collecting data on the number of local recruits taking part in the war in Ukraine, according to the Russian news agency Tass.

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The incident was the latest flare-up in tensions between Russia and Japan. In August, President Vladimir V. Putin made his first ever visit to islands claimed by both Moscow and Tokyo, prompting an angry rebuke from Japan's prime minister, Sanae Takaichi.

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