MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. The unprecedented activation of the US government in support of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent and US citizen accused of espionage, is "literally drowning" him in the public space and confirms the illegality of his activities, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

Commenting on the situation around Gershkovich, the diplomat pointed out that "the US government has literally turned on a kind of megaphone, not a microphone," and reports that it is doing everything to counter the alleged "Russian aggression against the journalist." "It is true that this journalist was caught red-handed," the diplomat recalled. "The relevant materials have been brought and shown to everyone, but the US government continues to stubbornly pretend that he is a journalist and was engaged in journalistic activities, while ignoring everything that has been presented to the public and, in particular, to the US side as evidence of his obvious guilt," she emphasized.

According to Zakharova, this is, first of all, "proof of the lack of the US standard in connection with those fundamental values for themselves that they proclaim in the sphere of freedom of speech."

"And the second is that this attitude of Washington is literally drowning Gershkovich in the public space," she pointed out. "Is this proof that Gershkovich really worked for the relevant structures, law enforcement agencies and special services of the United States, and that is why he is given attention, while other journalists are not entitled to it at all from the point of view of the White House?" she underscored.

According to the Center for Public Relations of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), Gershkovich, "acting as an agent for the American side, collected top-secret data about the activity of an enterprise of the Russian military-industrial complex." In this connection, the journalist was detained in Yekaterinburg at the end of March; criminal proceedings were initiated against him under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Espionage").