Moscow, Russia

An American citizen on Tuesday (Jan 9) was arrested on drug charges in Russia, the press service of the Moscow courts reported. The mentioned charges can carry up to 20 years in prison. 

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So far, details related to the case have not been revealed by Mosocw court, but as per the Russian media, the name of the accused matches that of a US citizen interviewed by the popular daily Komsomolskaya Pravda in 2020 - who was Robert Woodland Romanov. 

The report mentioned that the Ostankino District Court ruled on Saturday to hold him in detention for two months on charges of preparing to engage in illegal drug trafficking pending an official investigation. 

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The 2020 interview contained details about his personal life. He said in the interview that he was born in the Perm region in the Ural Mountains in 1991, and was adopted by an American couple when he was two. 

He said that he travelled to Russia to find his Russian mother and eventually met her in a TV show in Moscow. 

The man informed Komsomolskaya Pravda that he enjoyed living in Russia and planned to relocate there. 

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He also said in the interview that he moved to the town of Dolgoprudny, just outside of Moscow, and worked as an English teacher at a local school. 

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The incident can further escalate tensions between the United States and Russia, as  Washington has already been pressing Moscow to release jailed Americans Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich. 

Gershkovich was detained in March while reporting in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, which is about 2,000 kilometres east of Moscow and has remained behind bars ever since. He is a Wall Street Journal reporter, and the media house has denied all the accusations. 

Meanwhile, Whelan has been jailed in Russia since his December 2018 arrest on espionage-related charges. He is a corporate security executive from Michigan. 

The US has said that both have been wrongfully detained. 

(With inputs from agencies)