JUNEAU, Alaska — Two Russians who mentioned they fled the nation to avoid obligatory military service have requested asylum within the U.S. after touchdown on a distant Alaskan island within the Bering Sea, Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s workplace mentioned Thursday.
Karina Borger, a spokesperson for Murkowski, mentioned by e-mail that the workplace has been in communication with the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection and that “the Russian nationals reported that they fled one of the coastal communities on the east coast of Russia to avoid compulsory military service.”
Spokespersons with the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection every referred a reporter’s questions to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which didn’t instantly reply Thursday.
Alaska’s senators, Republicans Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, on Thursday mentioned the people landed at a seashore close to Gambell, an remoted neighborhood of about 600 individuals on St. Lawrence Island. The assertion would not specify when the incident occurred although Sullivan mentioned he was alerted to the matter by a “senior community leader from the Bering Strait region” on Tuesday morning.
A Sullivan spokesperson, Ben Dietderich, mentioned it was the workplace’s understanding that the people had arrived by boat.
Gambell is about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southwest of the western Alaska hub neighborhood of Nome and about 36 miles (58 kilometers) from the Chukotka Peninsula, Siberia.