A British YouTube blogger known for traveling to remote and dangerous places has been arrested along with a Belarusian woman at Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, which Russia leases and uses to launch satellites and space missions.
Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space agency, Roskosmos, said on May 7 that travel blogger Benjamin Rich and Belarusian citizen Alina Tseliupa had been detained near one of the launchpads at Baikonur.
Rogozin said local authorities were attempting to determine "the exact level of participation in illegal activities" by the two.
The 48-year-old Rich’s previous video on his YouTube channel -- which has some 3.5 million followers -- was filmed in Syria and posted on April 24.
Rich later said in an online posting, "Syrian suntan and back in a country with Soviet mosaics," but he did not specify where he was.
Britain's Foreign Ministry did not immediately comment.
Baikonur -- about 1,100 kilometers southwest of the Kazakh capital Nur-Sultan -- was at one time a closed Soviet city, but it is now open to tourists who apply for permission from Roskosmos.
