WASHINGTON, March 31. /TASS/: The US Administration is not planning right now to expel any of the Russian diplomats accredited in the United States in response to the arrest of Evan Gershkovich, The Wall Street Journal correspondent, US President Joe Biden told reporters at the White House on Friday before traveling to Mississippi.
"That’s not the plan right now," Biden said when asked by a reporter if Washington would expel Russian diplomats over the detention of US citizen Gershkovich.
According to the Russian Security Service’s (FSB) Public Relations Center, Evan Gershkovich, "acting at the behest of the American side, collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of an enterprise within Russia’s military-industrial complex." The reporter was detained in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. The FSB investigators opened a criminal case against the US citizen under Article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Espionage"). Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the journalist had been "caught red-handed."
In light of this, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a statement expressing deep concern for the safety of Gershkovich. According to the WSJ, Gershkovich covers Russia from his post at the newspaper’s Moscow bureau.
In the meantime, the WSJ editorial board had no better idea than to urge Washington to expel the Russian ambassador as well as Russian journalists from the United States. "The Biden Administration will have to consider diplomatic and political escalation. Expelling Russia’s ambassador to the US, as well as all Russian journalists working here, would be the minimum to expect," the newspaper said.
