Yesterday it emerged that the Belarusian security service had tried to seize former top manager of Belarusian Potash Company CJSC (BPC), Dmitry Samoilov, in central Moscow and take him to Minsk. Other BPC employees who are wanted in Belarus also discovered they were under surveillance. Evidently, the Belarusian security services are looking for a replacement for Uralkali CEO Vladislav Baumgertner, whose term of pretrial detention expires today. The incident, a representative of the businessman told Kommersant, took place on the Moscow–St. Petersburg train. Shortly before departure, four men in plain clothes entered the carriage. Opening the door of the compartment where Dmitry Samoilov was staying, they attempted to detain him. Showing the businessman IDs stating that they were officers of the Belarusian KGB, and informing him that they were required to bring him to the investigator who had put him on the wanted list, the men told Mr. Samoilov to come with them. Realizing that he had no chance of resisting inside the carriage, Mr. Samoilov took his belongings and documents (he was traveling to St. Petersburg to see his wife) and went with the security officers. However, as the group was passing police officers on duty on the platform at Leningradsky Station, Mr. Samoilov shouted that he was being kidnapped. The police took all five participants in the incident to a police station, where they were questioned. Mr. Samoilov, in particular, said that he is a Russian citizen and that officers of the Belarusian KGB had tried to detain him illegally in order to take him to Minsk. It should be noted that, under the Constitution, Russia does not extradite its own citizens to anyone, and its law enforcement agencies may carry out a request for questioning from another country only after receiving the appropriate formal request. Nevertheless, the police did not detain the security officers. In any case, by the time the lawyer called by Mr. Samoilov arrived at the police station, the Belarusian law enforcement officers had already left. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2329681 For fifteen years, the authorities' entire political rhetoric has been aimed at the idea that "Russia has once again made others reckon with it, and we are respected again on the international stage", yet here in the center of Moscow, a foreign security service tries to kidnap a Russian citizen and no one even detains the kidnappers. How very imperial.