The heads of the US and Russian foreign policy departments, Anthony Blinken and Sergey Lavrov, had a telephone conversation on Sunday, during which the head of American diplomacy called for the immediate release of The Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Hershkovich, who was arrested by a court in Moscow on charges of espionage.
Anthony Blinken expressed serious concern and called the situation unacceptable, according to the State Department. It is noted that Blinken and Lavrov also discussed the importance of creating conditions that allow diplomatic missions to carry out their work.
From the message of the Russian Foreign Ministry in Telegram about the conversation, it follows that Sergey Lavrov pointed out to Blinken "the need to respect the decision of the Russian authorities." "The inadmissibility of official officials in Washington and the Western mass media inciting agitation with the clear intention of giving... the case a political color" is stated in the text of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.
Serhii Lavrov noted that the American journalist was taken at the scene of the crime. The press secretary of the Kremlin, Dmytro Peskov, spoke about this earlier.
On Thursday, the Lefortivskyi Court of Moscow arrested Evan Hershkovich for two months, until May 29. Earlier that day, it became known about his detention in Yekaterinburg. The FSB claims that the journalist "on behalf of the US was engaged in collecting information about one of the enterprises of the Russian military industry, which constitute a state secret." Details were not provided. Hershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison.
The State Department said on Friday that it is working on obtaining consular access to the journalist sent to the detention center.
The White House dismissed the espionage allegations against American citizen Evan Hershkovich as absurd and said there was no reason to believe the allegations were justified. US President Joe Biden and the editors of The Wall Street Journal called for the release of the journalist.