The head of a leading Russian pro-war blog linked to the country's Defense Ministry has been detained in Montenegro, along with several other people who work for the publication.
Montenegrin Prime Minister Milojko Spajic on October 9 confirmed media reports that Mikhail Zvinchuk, the director of Rybar, and other Russian citizens had been arrested. The blog itself also confirmed the arrests.
Zvinchuk is under British and European Union sanctions, with the EU stating he was in a working group set up by Russian President Vladimir Putin to mobilize support for the war in Ukraine.
The US State Department has offered a $10 million reward for information on him and other Rybar figures for seeking to interfere in the 2024 US elections.
A US State Department notice calling for information about Zvinchuk and other Rybar figures
'Hybrid Action'
"We have been warning that attempts at hybrid action and destabilization relentlessly follow our European path," wrote Spajic on social media following the arrests.
Montenegro applied for membership in the bloc in December 2008, received candidate status in December 2010, and officially opened accession negotiations in June 2012.
"The message following today's successful action in which the head of the Rybar information network was apprehended is clear: Institutions are doing their job, Montenegro is protecting its interests, and no one will jeopardize our European future," he added.
Montenegrin media outlets reported that five arrests were made in Risan, a small town of some 2,000 inhabitants in the Bay of Kotor -- which has a sizeable Russian expatriate community -- on the country's Adriatic coastline. The group were filming a documentary criticizing Montenegro's push for EU membership, they said.
A statement on Rybar's Telegram channel, which has some 1.5 million subscribers in Russian and 80,000 in English, said the detained people "were on the country's territory legally and officially."
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Wider Europe Briefing: Montenegro Edging Closer To The EUIt said they were planning to film at Cetinje Monastery, an important Serbian Orthodox site that's about a 90-minute drive from Risan. The statement said Rybar was in touch with Russia's Foreign Ministry to resolve the situation and "expected all detainees to be released."
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the national-security council, suggested in a social media post arresting Western citizens in Russia to exchange for "our people."
There was no immediate response from Montenegrin security and judicial authorities to RFE/RL's request for additional details. Some local media are reporting that Zvinchuk's wife, Valeria, is among those detained.
Rybar has become one of the most influential pro-Russian military channels on Telegram since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In recent years, it has also expanded its activities into the western Balkans, including Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Montenegro has long had fraught relations with Moscow. In 2016, authorities there accused Russia of plotting with a group of Serbian ultranationalists to stage a coup, a charge the Kremlin denied.
Ties soured further when the small Adriatic republic joined NATO in 2017.