MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/. The US request for a consular visit to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being held in custody in Russia on espionage charges, has been turned down again as a retaliatory measure, the Russian foreign ministry said on Friday.

According to the ministry, the move was motivated by the non-issuance of US visas to Russian journalists who were to accompany Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during his visit to New York for UN Security Council events. "We confirm that the request of the US embassy in Moscow for a consular visit to Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested on espionage charges, was declined again as a response to the non-issuance of visas to Russian journalists from Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s team," the ministry said.

According to the Public Relations Center of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), Evan Gershkovich, "acting at the behest of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise within Russia’s military-industrial complex." The reporter was detained in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. FSB investigators opened a criminal case against the US citizen under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code (RCC) ("Espionage"). At that time, Peskov said that the journalist had been "caught red-handed." On March 30, Moscow’s Lefortovo District Court ordered that Gershkovich be held in custody until May 29.