Prominent Russian scholar detained and ‘blacklisted’ in Latvia minutes earlier than delivering lecture on North Korea | EUROtoday

Andrei Lankov, a distinguished Russian scholar on North Korea who teaches at a Seoul college, was detained in Latvia whereas delivering a lecture, Russian media reported.

Mr Lankov confirmed to a number of information businesses that he was detained by Latvian police simply minutes earlier than delivering a lecture on North Korea and positioned on a blacklist by the nation’s authorities.

Mr Lankov stated law enforcement officials took him to an immigration workplace after which positioned him in a automotive that took him to the border with Estonia. He was finally expelled from the nation.

At round 11pm Moscow time, Mr Lankov stated that he was nonetheless being held, including that legal professionals had been engaged on his case and buddies had been serving to with logistics.

“About thirty minutes before the event, police and immigration came and told me that the foreign ministry of Latvia included me on its list of undesirable people,” he instructed NK News.

While Latvian authorities haven’t issued an official clarification, Me Lankov believes it might be associated to his views on North Korea. “I believe they see my writing style as excessively objective and they see it as a problem,” he stated. “I say positive things about North Korea sometimes, and when negative, not in a hysterical style.”

Officials at South Korea’s Kookmin University, the place Lankov is a professor of historical past, stated they had been making an attempt to evaluate the state of affairs.

Mr Lankov’s lawyer later confirmed that the scholar was blacklisted from the nation, nonetheless, the designation didn’t forestall him from coming into the nation, in keeping with the Russian Anti-War Committee.

“Overall everything is fairly clear. The authorities do not like the fact that I refuse to turn real-life situations into politically convenient caricatures,” the scholar stated in a put up on Telegram.

A local of Leningrad, now known as St Petersburg, Mr Lankov lived for years in North Korea as an trade pupil within the Nineteen Eighties and has studied the nation all through his profession. In the Nineteen Nineties, he labored in South Korea and Australia, and since 2004 has taught in Seoul. He holds twin Russian and Australian citizenship.

Mr Lankov has been recognized for his realist view of North Korea, which he usually describes as a Machiavellian regime squeezing restricted assets and manipulating main powers to make sure its survival. He has additionally expressed vital views of Russia’s battle in Ukraine and Moscow’s use of North Korean troops to maintain its marketing campaign.

In April 2025, a court docket in Moscow reportedly fined him 10,000 rubles (£92) for participating within the actions of an organisation that had been recognised as “undesirable” in Russia. Mr Lankov instructed RBK on the time that he discovered in regards to the case from journalists.