South Korean held in Russia for spying did humanitarian work, aid group says

By Jack Kim and Ju-min Park

INCHEON, South Korea (Reuters) -A South Korean missionary arrested by Russia on charges of spying was sent to do purely humanitarian and missionary work and had no role in helping North Korean workers defect, the head of his Christian aid group said.

Ties between Russia and South Korea have been increasingly strained by Moscow’s growing relations with North Korea amid accusations that Pyongyang has supplied munitions for the war in Ukraine.

The case was the first involving a South Korean arrested in Russia on accusations of espionage, Russian state news agency TASS said, giving his name as Baek Kwang-soon, 53, although in an English-language report it used the name Baek Won-soon.

But the accusation of espionage was “totally absurd” and “completely untrue”, said Rev Lee Sun-gu, leader of the Global Love Rice Sharing Foundation, which lists Baek on its website as the head of its mission in the Russian city of Vladivostok.

“He was a conscientious and deeply religious person appointed by the group to help migrant labourers, the poor and people in hardship,” Lee told Reuters.

“Fifty percent of our work is aiding the needy and fifty percent of our work is mission. That’s it,” he said, adding that the group, based in the port city of Incheon, sent medicine and clothes to Russia to support Baek.

“It’s totally absurd and I think it’s some kind of a setup,” Lee said of the espionage charge.

Lee last heard from Baek on Dec. 30 via a mobile message offering new greetings and wishing him good health, though the latter did not read or respond to a Jan 24 message from Lee.

TASS quoted law enforcement agencies as saying Baek had been detained in the far eastern city of Vladivostok before being transferred to Moscow for “investigative actions”.

Lee said Kwang-soon was an alias used by Baek, in line with a custom among missionaries who work in certain countries. Baek used to work in China before moving to Vladivostok, Lee said.

Lee denied a report by South Korean news agency Yonhap, quoting an unnamed acquaintance, that said Baek or the group helped North Korean labourers in Russia to defect.

“Not at all,” he said.

“We have no knowledge of such activities, and if we had known that’s what he was doing, we would not have approved it. That kind of thing would put our missionaries at risk of arrest and being used for political purposes.”

The aid group, which has thousands of members, will start a campaign to free Baek and petition the South Korean government and the Russian embassy for his release, Lee said.

Baek’s arrest was likely to intimidate missionaries helping North Koreans at home or overseas, he added.

U.S. and South Korean officials have voiced concern that Russia has accepted new groups of North Korean workers in defiance of a U.N. resolution as ties with Pyongyang blossomed.

A 2017 U.N. Security Council resolution gave countries until 2019 to expel ​​North Korean workers on the grounds that their labour was exploited to earn foreign currency for North Korea’s banned nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

But thousands reportedly remain in China and Russia.

Lee’s foundation vets and appoints missionaries working in 69 countries after recommendations by churches, he said.

South Korea had 21,917 long-term missionaries working in 174 countries by 2023, one of the highest such figures worldwide, together with Brazil and the United States, surveys show.

South Korea is communicating with Russia for Baek’s return, a foreign ministry spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Since the Ukraine war began in February 2022, South Korea has urged citizens in a special advisory not to travel to Russia.

(Reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park; Additional reporting by Daewoung Kim; Editing by Michael Perry and Clarence Fernandez)