A new case emanating from Russia shows that there is a reason to travel advisory to high-risk countries. Correspondents to NBC News Courtney Kube and Mosheh Gains report that U.S. soldier Staff Sgt. Gordon Black has been detained after taking an unauthorized trip to Vladivostok, Russia. Assigned to South Korea, the trip was personal: he visited a woman he was having an affair with. That ill-advised side trip landed him in a very serious legal dilemma: It complicated his life and created diplomatic difficulties for the United States with Russia.
This was confirmed by the U.S. Army authorities, who said that Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, after the completion of his deployment in South Korea, was en route to America on a plane when he diverted to Russia without any known reasons to go visit his lover, a Russian. But this visit took an unexpected turn when Black got involved in a gang of activities that led to accusations of theft, his arrest, and pretrial confinement. It is still not clear what exactly the accusations are, and if at all they are in any connection with the woman he visited, it makes the matter extra complex and interesting.
Right after his arrest, the Russian Federation informed the U.S. Department of State in compliance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations provisions. The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is an international treaty regulating the system of consular diplomacy in case of the presence of a foreign citizen in detention. The USA provides consular support to Black, whose case is embedded in geopolitical tensions and international legal frameworks, further complicating freeing him.
The case underlines a series of travel warnings put out by the U.S. State Department: unfair imprisonment risks are rampant in Russia. For instance, Representative Michael McCaul has recently been sounding the alarm over Black’s case, saying this is all part of a much bigger problem of American detentions in Russia. His case is very dramatic in that way, and a cautionary tale to anyone: personal repercussions from geopolitical conflicts.
The Gordon Black experience is a severe warning to anyone contemplating a trip to Russia. It points not only to the obvious legal perils but also the personal perils of the situation. The visitor may land up in the most complicated judicial circumstances, all alone without any backup system from his homeland. These instances are perfect examples of what could happen if one chooses to ignore travel advice provided officially, especially in countries that are under extreme diplomatic pressure.
All these have become a very common scenario these days in the digital era: love scams, usually trapping people abroad, particularly those in danger. For this, romantic involvement with people from some countries, including Russia, has been noted as extremely dangerous in some cases, particularly to American soldiers and government employees. These social interactions may ultimately result in surprisingly convoluted legal issues or else be quite handily manipulated for espionage and other nefarious activity. The Gordon Black case really does remind us why travel advisories are so important.
These regulations are not mere red tape but are in place to protect against real, even existing, danger—including deceitful romantic liaisons that place you at great peril with the law and your own safety. Think about these potential outcomes before you buy a ticket: Is the adventure worth the threat? Could you be the next Gordon Black, hopelessly trapped in a world that is anything but a love story that has gone wrong?
Even more importantly, the supposed intentions of Staff Sgt. Gordon Black to be in the place in question raise doubts as to the credibility of his alleged motives. An American soldier based in South Korea certainly has much time to acquire all those things that a woman from Vladivostok possibly could have treasured, so the entire situation can be seen as a great deal more fake. This raises the possibility that this could have all been a set-up engineered by Russian authorities for their own strategic purposes involving Black. The fact is such a hypothesis is not at all far-fetched, considering the complex, geopolitical tensions that have been swirling these days between the United States and Russia. This is yet another reason for caution among American military personnel and government officials: Engagements in high-risk countries could not only put them at personal risk but, in effect, would also create political leverage on a larger scale.
