World News US citizen convicted of drug-related charges in Russia Blog

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Russian-born US citizen Robert Woodland was sentenced to twelve and a half years in prison by a Moscow court for drug offenses.

He was found guilty of attempting to traffic large quantities of illegal drugs as part of an organized group.

Russian media reported that his name matched that of a U.S. citizen interviewed in 2020 who said he was born in the Perm region in 1991 and adopted by a U.S. couple at the age of two.

He said he traveled to Russia to find his mother and eventually met her on a television show before deciding to move to Russia.

The Russian news agency Interfax quoted court officials as saying that Woodland also holds Russian citizenship.

Arrests of American citizens in Russia are becoming more frequent as relations between Russian and American politicians sink to Cold War lows.

US authorities accuse Russia of targeting its citizens and using them as political bargaining tools, but Russian officials insist they have all broken the law.

Some of them have been exchanged for Russian citizens held in the United States, while for others the prospect of release in an exchange is less clear.

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