Ukrainians, Russian held for Dubai balcony nude photo shoot

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Police in Dubai have arrested 11 Ukrainian women and a Russian man for their involvement in a nude photo shoot on a high-rise balcony in the city, authorities said Tuesday, after the footage went viral and prompted a crackdown in the Gulf Arab sheikhdom.

Dubai is a top destination for the world's Instagram influencers and models, who fill their social media feeds with slick bikini-clad selfies from the coastal emirate's luxury hotels and artificial islands.

But the city's brand as a glitzy foreign tourist destination has at times provoked controversy and collided with the sheikhdom's strict rules governing public behavior and expression, which are based on Islamic law, or Shariah.

The nude photo shoot scandal comes just days before Ramadan, the holiest month of the Muslim calendar, and as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lands in nearby Doha, Qatar, for an official state visit. Over the years, Dubai increasingly has promoted itself as a popular destination for Russians on holiday. Signs in Cyrillic are a common sight at the city's major malls.

Dubai police announced earlier this week they had arrested a group of people on debauchery charges over a widely shared video showing naked women posing in broad daylight on a balcony overlooking the city's upscale Marina neighborhood. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry confirmed Tuesday that 11 of detained women were Ukrainian, while a Russian diplomat in Dubai said the photographer who filmed the naked women held Russian citizenship.

Dubai police declined to identify those detained. More than a dozen women appeared in the video and the nationalities of the others arrested were not immediately known.

The generally pro-Kremlin tabloid Life identified the Russian man arrested as the head of an information technology firm in Russia’s Ivanovo...