(AmericanProsperity.com) – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Sunday that the Kremlin must immediately release American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in Moscow by Russian authorities on espionage charges. This situation comes at a moment when different media outlets have been pointing out the crisis that Russian military forces are currently experiencing in Ukraine, where Ukrainian soldiers have to meet their goal of not letting the enemy make significant advantages in the eastern city of Bakhmut.
According to the US State Department, Blinken “conveyed” the Biden administration’s concerns on the Kremlin’s “unacceptable” detention of 31-years old Gershkovich, who works for the Wall Street Journal as a Moscow correspondent. It also pointed out that, in addition to Gershkovich, Blinken also asked his Russian counterpart for the release of Paul Whelan, an American former Marine who was detained in the Eurasian nation five years ago on espionage charges.
The phone call between Blinken and Lavrov represented a significant situation since relations between the White House and the Kremlin have been starting to chill since US President Joe Biden took office. This situation escalated even more after the Russian regime decided to invade Ukraine in 2022, which has turned Russia into an international pariah.
During a Thursday hearing in Russia’s capital, a Russian court ruled that the American journalist would remain in prison pending the investigation, while the country’s Federal Security Service pointed out it decided to arrest him in the city of Yekaterinburg as they discovered he was allegedly trying to steal classified information about different activities of a Russian enterprise linked with the nation’s military-industrial complex.
Gershkovich’s arrest represents a turning point in the geopolitical tension between Washington and Moscow, considering that he’s the first American journalist that Russian authorities arrest in the Eurasian country on spying accusations since 1986 when the KGB arrested Nicholas Daniloff, who worked as a Moscow correspondent for US News and Report at that time.
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