Two Russian indigenous Siberians were so scared of having to fight in the invasion of Ukraine, they chanced everything to take a small boat across the treacherous Bering Sea to reach US soil, Alaska’s senior US senator said after talking with the two.
The two, identified as males by a resident, landed earlier this month near Gambell, on Alaska’s St Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait, where they asked for asylum.
“They feared for their lives because of Russia, who is targeting minority populations for conscription into service in Ukraine,” US Senator Lisa Murkowski said on Saturday during a candidate forum at the Alaska Federation of Natives conference in Anchorage.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It is very clear to me that these individuals were in fear, so much in fear of their own government that they risked their lives and took a 15-foot [4.5m] skiff across those open waters,” Murkowski said when answering a question about Arctic policy.
“It is clear that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is focused on a military conquest at the expense of his own people,” Murkowski said. “He’s got one hand on Ukraine and he’s got the other on the Arctic, so we have to be eyes wide open on the Arctic.”
Murkowski said she met with the two Siberians recently, but did not provide more details about exactly when or where the meeting took place or where their asylum process stood. She was not available after the forum for follow-up questions.
Murkowski’s office on Oct. 6 announced their request for asylum, saying the men reportedly fled one of the coastal communities on Russia’s east coast.
A village elder in Gambell, 87-year-old Bruce Boolowon, is believed to be the last living Alaska National Guard member who helped rescue 11 US Navy men who were in a plane that was shot down by Russian MiGs over the Bering Sea in 1955. The plane crash-landed on St Lawrence Island.
Gambell, an Alaska native community of about 600 people, is about 58km from Russia’s Chukotka Peninsula in Siberia.
Even though one of the Russians spoke English pretty well, two Russian-born women from Gambell were brought in to translate. Both women married local men and became naturalized US citizens, said Boolowon, who is Siberian Yupik.
Russians landing in Gambell during the Cold War was commonplace, but the visits were not nefarious, Boolowon said.
As St Lawrence Island is so close to Russia, people routinely traveled back and forth to visit relatives.
However, these two men seeking asylum were unknown to the people of Gambell.
“They were foreigners and didn’t have any passports, so they put them in jail,” Boolowon told reporters last week.
The two men spent the night in the jailhouse, but townspeople in Gambell brought them food, both Alaska native dishes and items bought at a grocery store.
“They were pretty full; they ate a lot,” Boolowon said.
“The next day, a coast guard C-130 with some officials came and picked them up,” he said, adding that was the last he heard about the Russians.
Since then, officials have been tight-lipped.
“The individuals were transported to Anchorage for inspection, which includes a screening and vetting process, and then subsequently processed in accordance with applicable US immigration laws under the Immigration and Nationality Act,” was all a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said in an e-mail this past week when asked for an update on the asylum process and if and where the men were being held.
Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney in Anchorage, said it is very unlikely information about the Russians will ever be released.
“The US government is supposed to keep all of this confidential, so I don’t know why they would be telling anybody anything,” she told reporters.
Instead, it would be up to the two Russians to publicize their situation, which could put their families in Russia at risk.
“I don’t know why they would want to do that,” Stock said.
Thousands of Russian men fled the country after Putin last month announced a mobilization to call up about 300,000 men with past military experience to bolster forces in Ukraine.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS