A French fellow was arrested in Russia and detained.

“We received information about the arrest and detention of one of our nationals in Russia, in the Russian Far East region,” diplomatic sources said, declining to specify the date or circumstances of his arrest.
The sources also declined to provide the identity of the national.

According to Le Monde, he is a 44-year-old French endurance cyclist, according to Le Monde. “Sofiane Shehili (…) was arrested in Vladivostok, in the Russian Far East, at the end of his plan to break the world record for cycling across Eurasia, a route linking Lisbon and Vladivostok,” the French newspaper wrote, adding that the 44-year-old would be “charged with illegal border crossing”.

“Our Consulate General in Moscow has contacted the Russian authorities and requested consular protection,” sources told the French agency.

On September 2, Shehili, who left the Portuguese capital on July 1, according to L’Equipe, said on his Instagram account that he was stuck at the Sino-Russian border after twice trying to enter Russian territory.

A former employee of Telerama magazine, Sofiane Shehili, specializes in endurance cycling, which involves races spanning hundreds or thousands of kilometers.

On his website, he claims to have won 11 of the more than 25 races he has participated in since 2016. In 2017, he travelled from Paris to Taiwan, covering 16,000km in three months.