MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Washington’s threat of a possible departure of the Russian Ambassador from the US over visa disagreements was serious.

"The threat is serious. Yet in general it is better to address the Foreign Ministry for comments on this matter," the Kremlin official told journalists on Thursday.

As Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov told reporters earlier, the US Department of State told Russian diplomats that the Russian Ambassador would have to leave the US by April if Moscow didn’t fulfill a number of Washington’s conditions on issuing visas to the bodyguards of the US envoy to Russia.

At the same time, according to the Russian diplomat, "there are no advancements either in regard to the diplomatic property, or in regard to the issuance of visas or in the development of relations." He noted that he saw "only a trend towards a worsening" of the situation. "Everything that has been going on over recent months on this track only indicates the hardening of the line of the United States of America with regards to our presence," the ambassador emphasized.