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A British who drove to the Polish border to meet a Russian woman he met online has been seized by border guards.
The Polish Border Guard referred to the 37-year-old British national as a ‘stubborn Englishman’ after he arrived at the border in his BMW – with no visa or vehicle documents – and demanded to be let into Russia.
He told guards he ‘had to get across the border at Grzechotki’ to meet his new girlfriend, who was 700 miles away in St Petersburg.
After being turned away, he then tried to get across the border on foot through woodland roads, as seen in obtained footage, but he was detained.
He had told Polish border guards that his satnav had ‘gone wrong’.
In a statement, the Polish border guards said: ‘Officers from the Border Guard Station in Grzechotki detained an Englishman who entered the border road.
The man was filmed walking along a rural path (Picture: Newsflash)
Border guards stopped and detained him (Picture: Newsflash)
‘The man wanted to get to Russia. The purpose of his trip was a girl he met on the Internet… The man did not have a visa to Russia or a vehicle registration certificate.
‘He claimed that he wanted to go to St Petersburg to visit his fiancée, whom he met on the Internet.’
A few hours after first approaching the border, he drove his BMW to the ‘green border’ area of the Russian border with Poland.
They added: ‘Around 5.30 a.m., Border Guard cameras recorded a man who entered the border road. The detained Englishman explained to the Border Guard officers that the navigation had directed him wrong.’
The fined the unnamed man £120 and later released the Brit, who told the guard he would try to enter Russia through Lithuania.
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Within Russia, however, nationals are going to extreme lengths to escape conscription into the war with Ukraine.
University students are being taken from classes and dormitories, while raids are carried out on vegetable warehouses, mosques and on the street, where any young men eligible for military service are dragged to enlistment offices.
Hundreds of thousands of young men have fled to avoid being called up to fight – and Georgia is a logical stop for Russians who do not need a visa to enter or work there.
Putin also banned men from leaving Russia from the day they are summoned to a conscription office and increased the fines for failure to appear at the enlistment office.
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