Pokémon is a Western intelligence tool, Belarus claims – POLITICO

Ivanov introduced up Pokémon Go throughout a dialogue about objects most definitely to be focused by spies.

Pokémon Go is an augmented actuality sport, launched in 2016, permitting its tens of millions of gamers to make use of their smartphones to seize digital Pokémon (suppose: make-believe animals with superpowers) within the bodily world.

It promised new customers that “Pokémon may be present in each nook of the earth.” Pokémon is a Japanese media franchise together with video video games, enjoying playing cards and a TV present which launched again in 1996.

Russia, Belarus’ shut ally, warned on the time that the sport may very well be a safety threat, whereas Russian media claimed it was a CIA plot. Niantic, the American developer of the applying, denied that Pokémon Go was an espionage device.