Philippines Secures Release of 24 Nationals from Siberian Detention After President Marcos Urges Putin

Russia has released 24 Filipino nationals who had been held without charge in a Siberian city for months, following Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr raising concerns about their detention with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Philippine officials said on Saturday.

The 24 Filipinos were scheduled to arrive in Manila on two flights early Sunday, with the first group to be greeted by Philippine Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro, who had accompanied President Marcos during his talks with Putin on Wednesday in Kazan, Russia, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila.

As the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), President Marcos led the bloc’s leaders in commemorating the 35th anniversary of ASEAN’s diplomatic relations with Russia. On the sidelines of the summit in Kazan, Marcos held a bilateral meeting with President Putin.

Following Marcos’s intervention on Wednesday, the Filipinos were released relatively quickly. The Philippines, a key treaty ally of the United States in the region, was among the majority of ASEAN members that voted in favor of a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Singapore stood alone among ASEAN members in imposing sanctions on Russia, and its Prime Minister, Lawrence Wong, attended the Kazan summit.

After his bilateral meeting with Putin, President Marcos told reporters that he had raised concerns about the Filipinos, who had been detained for roughly nine months in Irkutsk, southeastern Siberia, without formal charges. He added that the Philippine government possesses no further details regarding their welfare.

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