US diplomats were prevented from visiting Evan Gershkovich in pretrial detention. The Russian Foreign Ministry called this "retaliatory measures"

The Russian Foreign Ministry has refused to allow US diplomats to visit the arrested American journalist Evan Gershkovich. This was reported by the department itself.

Russian diplomats called this "retaliatory measures" to the "provocative actions" of the US mission: earlier, the latter refused visas to journalists who were supposed to accompany Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to New York for a meeting of the UN Security Council.

The Wall Street Journal correspondent Gershkovich in Yekaterinburg at the end of March. On March 30, he was sent to the Lefortovo pretrial detention center on charges of espionage (Article 276 of the Criminal Code), later the Moscow City Court decided this. According to the investigation, he "was collecting information about one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex." Gershkovich's lawyer Daniil Berman was not allowed to attend the court hearing due to the measure of restraint.

detained approved on April 17, US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy to visit the journalist in custody. She called for his immediate release and said he was holding firm.

The Russian Foreign Ministry once again denied American diplomats the opportunity to visit Evan Gershkovich in the pretrial detention center, the ministry itself.

On May 19, US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy was allowed to see Evan Gershkovich in the Lefortovo pretrial detention center. Radio Liberty reported this. Details of the meeting were not reported.

June 3 writes - Colleagues of Gershkovich consider the case fabricated. Thus, the founder of the publication Bellingcat Eliot Higgins and human rights activists of the project Gulagu.net, that the reason for the detention of the journalist was the potential opportunity to exchange him for prisoners from Russia in other countries. suggested - on April 18 in Yekaterinburg after a search of a local resident Yaroslav Shirshchikov, who was the first to report the disappearance of Gershkovich. A case was opened against him under the article on justification of terrorism (Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code). The man was detained and sent to a pre-trial detention center - Evgeny Smirnov, a lawyer for the human rights organization "First Department", told "Verstka" that the Gershkovich case is the first case of espionage against a foreign journalist. "Previously, this has never happened in practice in Russia. There were two charges of treason against Russian journalists - these are Grigory Pasko and Ivan Safronov. But for [an espionage case to be opened] against a foreign journalist and for espionage, I think this is a new feature,” the human rights activist explained .