The main Russian security service, the FSB, arrested a foreign reporter on suspicion of espionage — this time a journalist for the Japanese newspaper Hokkaido Shimbun in the Far Eastern Sakhalin region.
The incident is the latest addition to what some journalists-in-exile refer to as the Kremlin’s exchange fund. Others in the West term it a hostage bank of Westerners visiting Russia who are plucked by the FSB as a means to apply duress on their governments.
Thirty-four-year-old Yuki Imai looked bewildered and shocked as several masked FSB operatives stormed his hotel room in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on the Pacific island of Sakhalin in Russia’s Far East, and threw him half-naked onto the floor. The FSB brazenly advertised its visible brutality with a video showing his arrest.
The Japanese journalist was then put on a plane bound for Moscow, and upon landing immediately taken to a Moscow court, which ruled that he should be sent to Lefortovo — the notorious FSB prison — and kept in a cell until December 12.
The FSB claimed that the journalist had been gathering information about residents of the Kuril Islands recruited to fight in the war in Ukraine, and alleged he was working for Japanese intelligence. Japan claims the southernmost Kuril Islands and has refused to conclude a World War II peace treaty with the Kremlin until the matter is settled.
According to Russian media reports, Yuki Imai studied at Saint Petersburg State University and speaks fluent Russian. He recently travelled across the Russian Far East, interviewing locals and visiting historical sites related to the 1905 Russo-Japanese War and World War II.
Hokkaido Shimbun is a daily newspaper based in Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s four main islands, located closest to Russia. It is also the only one among Japan’s regional newspapers with its own correspondent in Russia.
To make it clear that this was not just about the journalist, but also a message to the Japanese government, the same day the FSB raided the newspaper’s local offices in the Hokkaido Center in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, a Far Eastern town on Russia’s Sakhalin Island.
The brand-new, six-story office complex was opened with great fanfare in 2015 by the governor of Sakhalin and the head of Japan’s neighboring Hokkaido Prefecture.
At the time, the Russian regional authorities called the Hokkaido Center a symbol of closer future cooperation between Sakhalin and Hokkaido. Indeed, besides the newspaper’s local office, the center also housed Japanese companies and a consulate. The opening ceremony took place despite opposition from local residents, who had accused the regional administration of “selling their land to the Japanese.” But their concerns were brushed aside — the Sakhalin administration badly needed Japanese investment, and the cooperation was supported at the very top in Moscow: the building of the center was partly funded by Gazprombank.
The mood has now changed.
Earlier this year, Japan woke up to the threat of Russian intelligence operations, including the procurement of dual-use technologies and sabotage. In January, Tokyo police referred a former Russian trade representative in Japan to prosecutors, amid suspicions of stealing sensitive trade secrets for the SVR.
This awakening came amid a sharp increase in Russian tourism to Japan. With travel to Europe and the US becoming much more difficult for Russians after 2022, Russian tourists flocked to the country: responding to growing demand, Japan opened two new visa centers — in Moscow and St. Petersburg — early this year.
But increasing Russian espionage clearly set alarms ringing, and in June, Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan’s largest newspapers, published a three-page story on Russian sabotage.
The following month, major Japanese media picked up a New York Times story in July about a GRU operation in Tokyo allegedly procuring dual-use components for Russian missiles.
The article exposed military intelligence operative Maksim Filchenkov, who was working undercover as an employee of Aeroflot, Russia’s state airline, at its Tokyo office. A few days later, Filchenkov fled Japan — news that was also extensively covered.
None of which went down well in the Kremlin.
In August, Putin himself became involved in the row when he visited the disputed Kuril Islands for the first time in all his years in the Kremlin. The visit provoked protests from Japan at the highest level. Japan’s foreign minister summoned the Russian ambassador, while Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called Putin’s actions “absolutely unacceptable”.
The arrest of the Hokkaido Shimbun reporter is therefore the latest in the chain of events. And it is unlikely to end quickly.
The FSB is likely to follow what it regards as its successful 2023 operation against the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested on bogus charges of spying for the CIA. He was duly sentenced to 16 years in prison and released only in August 2024 as part of a prisoner swap between Russia and the US.
Hostage-taking as a method of applying pressure — whether on its own citizens or on other countries — is becoming increasingly popular in Moscow, and the FSB is clearly warming to the task.
Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan are Non-resident Senior Fellows with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). They are Russian investigative journalists and co-founders of Agentura.ru, a watchdog of Russian secret service activities. Their book , Our Dear Friends in Moscow, The Inside Story of a Broken Generation, was published in 2025.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
