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Kremlin: Putin made no request to Finnish authorities to release Russian national

Russian national Yury Yefremov detained in Finland on a US request has been freed

© EPA/MAURITZ ANTIN

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has not sent any requests to the Finnish authorities to release Russian national Yuri Yefremov, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

"In this regard, of course, no special request from the head of state was required," Peskov told journalists.

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The Kremlin paid attention to the fact of the Russian national’s detention in Finland, the presidential spokesman said.

"But the Foreign Ministry took maximum possible efforts even without this," Peskov said.

"As was stressed in the Foreign Ministry’s corresponding statements, our diplomatic corps takes very energetic efforts from the very beginning and, moreover, not only in this case but also in all similar cases, to protect the interests of our citizens," the Kremlin spokesman said.

As Yefremov’s lawyer Markku Jakobsson told TASS on Wednesday, Russian national Yuri Yefremov detained in Finland on December 19 on a US request had been freed and was at large.

According to the lawyer, Yefremov was detained after visiting an arms exhibition in the United States in 2011 where he bought an item for a pistol that was seized from him as he was leaving the country.

Russian Foreign Ministry’s Envoy for Human Rights, Democracy and Supremacy of the Law Konstantin Dolgov said earlier Moscow considered as inadmissible Yefremov’s possible extradition from Finland to the United States where he could face "American-style justice."

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