MOSCOW: Russian state media said on Monday that Moscow’s forces fighting in Ukraine had successfully extracted a US citizen from eastern Ukraine who had secretly helped them target Ukraine for at least two years.
State media published a picture of the purported American in civilian clothing embracing a group of what looked like Russian special forces wearing combat uniforms. His face was blurred out in the photograph.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the Russian reports which cited Moscow’s forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine as saying they were calling the American “Kenneth M.”
The US embassy in Moscow said it could not comment “due to privacy concerns.”
Russian media cast the man as “The Quiet American” after the 1955 novel by Graham Greene which tells the story of early US involvement in Vietnam through the adventures of a British journalist and an American agent.
Russian forces in the Donetsk region were quoted as saying that Russian special forces and army units had spirited the American out of eastern Ukraine and that he had been supplying Russia with “valuable intelligence” for two years.
Russian media said he had supplied information that had allowed the Russian military to “execute precision strikes against the enemy.”
“The life of the rescued American is not in danger,” Rusisan-backed forces in Donetsk were cited as saying. “The issue of granting political asylum and becoming a citizen of Russia is being resolved.”
Russian state media says Moscow spirited a US citizen working for it out of Ukraine
https://arab.news/gyr6b
Russian state media says Moscow spirited a US citizen working for it out of Ukraine
- The US embassy in Moscow said it could not comment “due to privacy concerns”
US border agent shoots and wounds two people in Portland
- The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement
A US immigration agent shot and wounded a man and a woman in Portland, Oregon, authorities said on Thursday, leading local officials to call for calm given public outrage over the ICE shooting death of a Minnesota woman a day earlier.
“We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more,” Portland police chief Bob Day said in a statement.
The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The statement said the driver, a suspected Venezuelan gang member, attempted to “weaponize” his vehicle and run over the agents. In response, DHS said, “an agent fired a defensive shot” and the driver and a passenger drove away.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the circumstances of the incident.
Portland police said that the shooting took place near a medical clinic in eastern Portland. Six minutes after arriving at the scene and determining federal agents were involved in the shooting, police were informed that two people with gunshot wounds — a man and a woman — were asking for help at a location about 2 miles (3 km) to the northeast of the medical clinic.
Police said they applied tourniquets to the man and woman, who were taken to a hospital. Their condition was unknown.
The shooting came just a day after a federal agent from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a separate agency within the Department of Homeland Security, fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three in her car in Minneapolis.
That shooting has prompted two days of protests in Minneapolis. Officers from both ICE and Border Patrol have been deployed in cities across the United States as part of Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
While the aggressive enforcement operations have been cheered by the president’s supporters, Democrats and civil rights activists have decried the posture as an unnecessary provocation.
US officials contend criminal suspects and anti-Trump activists have increasingly used their cars as weapons, though video evidence has sometimes contradicted their claims.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement his city was now grappling with violence at the hands of federal agents and that “we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts.”
He called on ICE to halt all its operations in the city until an investigation can be completed.
“Federal militarization undermines effective, community-based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region,” Wilson said. “I will use every legal and legislative tool available to protect our residents’ civil and human rights.”
