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Russia will never stop fighting for Russian nationals detained in US — Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that several dozen Russian citizens still remain in US prisons

MOSCOW, November 1. /TASS/. Russia will never stop fighting for Russian nationals held in US prisons, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Rossiya-24 TV channel on Friday.

Lavrov reminded that Russian national Maria Butina recently returned to Russia after spending 1.5 years in an American prison. "They were basically trying to break her psychologically, and physically it was not easy for her in the conditions of different prisons," he noted.

Several dozen Russian citizens still remain in US prisons, the foreign minister added. Some of them have already been sentenced, like Viktor Bout, Konstantin Yaroshenko and Roman Seleznev. Lavrov noted that Russian nationals are held in conditions that are far from ideal from the point of view of international law and international agreements.

"We will never stop working on this. We achieve some small steps, but that still matters," Lavrov stressed.

He described the US actions against Russian nationals as illegal. "Any suspicions that the US may have about our citizens in regard to their alleged illegal activities should be transferred via channels established by the bilateral consular convention," he noted.