A French national has been arrested in Russia for “illegally” crossing the border from Estonia to Russia by boat and has been detained for at least 30 days, Russia’s FSB security service said on Tuesday, AFP News reported. ro.

FSB Photo: – / Sputnik / Profimedia

“The verification measures carried out made it possible to establish that we are talking about a French citizen,” the FSB said in a statement.

“The foreigner admitted that he illegally crossed the border with the Russian Federation, bypassing the checkpoints established between Estonia and Russia, and crossed the Narva River by boat,” the FSB statement quoted by Russian agencies says.

Estonia, an EU and NATO member state, shares a 300-kilometer border with Russia, and tensions between the two countries have risen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The FSB opened a criminal case against the Frenchman.

According to Russian legislation, illegal border crossing is punishable by imprisonment for up to six years.