MOSCOW, July 6. /TASS/. Further visits by US Ambassador to Moscow Lynne Tracy to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained on espionage charges, will be at the discretion of and according to the schedule of the Russian authorities, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday.
"Let me emphasize that, going forward, visits by the US ambassador and her consular subordinates to Gershkovich will continue to be provided for based on the schedule and at the discretion of the Russian side," Zakharova said.
The diplomat reiterated that, under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the right of consular officers to visit their citizens who are either in custody or under arrest is governed by the laws and regulations of the country where they were detained. This is the approach that Russia abides by, she noted.
As Zakharova pointed out, the principle of reciprocity is also taken into account in handling such issues. "We have repeatedly mentioned how [Russians] detained [abroad] are treated, how they are detained in general. Many were simply kidnapped all around the world, attacked, detained illegally with stories invented to arrest them under false pretenses," the diplomatic spokeswoman noted. "So, we take a lot of factors into consideration when making such decisions; these include both the principle of reciprocity and circumstances of a bilateral nature. In particular, when unfriendly actions were taken against Russian journalists, who were denied [US] visas to participate in and cover Russia’s activity at the UN this past April," she elaborated.
"Accordingly, it has been decided that the visit of American diplomats to Gershkovich would be postponed," the diplomat explained.
Zakharova emphasized that visits to detainees cannot come "at the discretion of the US embassy." "In Russia, this American diplomatic style of just ‘barging in’ that they use in some other countries, simply doesn’t work. The sooner they understand this, the better. And let them remember the principle of reciprocity," the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman stressed.
According to the Public Relations Center of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), 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 at the end of March. FSB investigators opened a criminal case against the US citizen under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Espionage").
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry 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. On May 23, the court extended his detention by three months.