The son of a senior Russian official arrested in Italy at Washington’s request disappeared the day after a court approved his extradition to the United States, media reports said Friday.
Following his arrest at Milan Malpensa Airport on October 17, Artyom Uss was held at his residence near Milan but required to wear an electronic bracelet.
US authorities accuse Uss, the son of a Siberian governor, of having illegally sold US technologies to Russian arms companies.
On Tuesday, an Italian court agreed to his extradition to the United States — but the following day, he disappeared, media reports said.
According to La Repubblica newspaper, police checked on Uss early Wednesday but around lunchtime his electronic bracelet sounded the alarm, and he has not been seen since.
Several Italian dailies speculated that he may already be abroad.
His father Alexander Uss, the governor of the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk, on Friday expressed his concern.
“As a father, I am very worried about my son,” he told a press conference.
“I don’t know where he is and I don’t know what happened in detail.
“All I can say is that according to Artyom, the apartment where he was staying was well guarded by police. They even checked on him several times a night. So I don’t really understand how he disappeared.
He had previously denounced his son’s arrest as “political” and repeated this Friday, saying his son was caught up in a “geopolitical game” and claiming the lawsuit against him was “fabricated”.
Uss was one of five Russians arrested on Washington’s request for “unlawful schemes to export powerful” US military technology to Russia.
The US Justice Department said some of these had been “discovered on the battlefields of Ukraine“.
After his arrest in Italy, Russia put Uss on its own wanted list, with media reports saying he was accused of money laundering, potentially paving the way for Moscow to demand his extradition.
