Russia denies US consular visit to jailed journalist Evan Gershkovich

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov complained last weekend that the United States had denied visas to Russian journalists due to travel with him to the UN headquarters.

“The US embassy was informed that its request for a consular visit on May 11 … to US citizen (Evan) Gershkovich, who was detained on charges of espionage, has been rejected,” the Russian foreign ministry said on Thursday local time.

The decision followed what the foreign ministry said was a “provocative” US decision to bar Russian journalists from flying to the United States.

The ministry warned that “other potential retaliatory measures are being worked out.”

US journalist Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia last month and charged with espionage.

His employer, The Wall Street Journal, and US officials denied the allegations. Gershkovich, who previously worked for AFP, is the first foreign journalist arrested on spying charges since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

After its journalists were denied visas on Sunday, Russia vowed to respond. “We will find formats to respond to this so that the Americans remember for a long time that such things must not be done,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was cited as saying by state-run news agencies.

Since the beginning of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine last year, Moscow has tightened conditions to obtain accreditations needed to work as a journalist in the country.

Meanwhile, the United States added new sanctions on Russia’s FSB intelligence agency and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Thursday local time for taking “hostage” Americans like Gershkovich.

The US is “showing that one cannot engage in this sort of awful behavior of using human beings as pawns, as bargaining chips, without paying consequences,” said a senior US official.

Both agencies have already been hit with punitive measures by the US State and Treasury Departments in the past.

But the official said the new sanctions would underscore the US view of what he described as an increasing phenomenon of governments detaining foreign nationals to extract political benefits.

“The use of human beings as political pawns, as bargaining chips, detained by governments but on false pretences, is a practice that seems to be trending in the wrong direction,” the official said.

Applying sanctions aims “to promote accountability for the culprits, and by doing so, to prevent and deter the next set of cases from arising in the first place,” the official said.

Originally published as Russia denies US consular visit to jailed journalist Evan Gershkovich