Japan has summoned Russia’s ambassador in Tokyo after a Japanese diplomat was blindfolded and physically restrained during an interrogation in Vladivostok.
Japan’s foreign minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said Tatsunori Motoki, a consul based in the eastern Russian city, had been subjected to a “coercive interrogation” during his detention by Russia’s FSB security service.
The FSB said it was holding him on allegations of espionage, one of which was linked to the effect of Ukraine war sanctions on Russia.
The Kremlin has previously labelled Japan a “hostile country” – a designation it shares with the US, Britain and EU countries – after Tokyo joined them in imposing sanctions on Moscow over the war in Ukraine.
Hayashi said on Tuesday that Motoki had not engaged in any illegal activity and described his detention, which lasted several hours, as “totally unacceptable”.
In response, Japan’s foreign ministry summoned the Russian ambassador, Mikhail Galuzin, over the incident, according to the Kyodo news agency.
The ministry demanded that Moscow make a formal apology, Hayashi said, adding the government would consider appropriate retaliatory measures.
Motoki was detained and accused of spying after he allegedly obtained classified information in exchange for a payment, the FSB alleged.
The diplomat, it added, had been declared persona non grata and ordered to leave Russia within 48 hours. Media reports said he was expected back in Japan by Wednesday.
“A Japanese diplomat was detained red-handed while receiving classified information, in exchange for money, about Russia’s cooperation with another country in the Asia-Pacific region,” the FSB claimed in a statement carried by Russian news agencies on Monday.
The FSB also claimed he had been soliciting information about the impact on the eastern Primorsky region of sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Japan’s embassy in Moscow lodged a protest with the Russian foreign ministry, describing Motoki’s detention and interrogation as violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
