Moscow “will not forgive” the United States for refusing to issue visas to Russian journalists who accompanied the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, to the United Nations on Monday and Tuesday, the Russian minister said on Sunday before leaving for New York, writes Agerpres.

“We will not forget, we will not forgive,” Lavrov warned the press, condemning Washington’s “cowardly” decision.

This month, Russia presides over the UN Security Council during an all-out military offensive against Ukraine, for which it has been condemned internationally.

“The country that calls itself the smartest, the strongest, the freest, the fairest, “got puffed up” and even made a fool of itself,” Lavrov lamented, ironically over the fact that the United States, denying visas to Russian journalists, showed, in his words, “the value ( their) statements regarding freedom of expression”.

Since the beginning of the Russian intervention in Ukraine, the conditions for issuing credentials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow, on which visas depend, have already strengthened significantly.

This new episode of tensions between Moscow and Washington comes three weeks after the arrest in Russia of an American journalist, Evan Hershkovich, who is suspected by Russian authorities of “espionage” that the United States and the person responsible strongly deny.

A Russian court on Tuesday rejected a request to release American journalist Evan Hershkovich, keeping him in custody on espionage charges he denies, AFP and Reuters reported.

Evan Hershkovich, a reporter for the American daily newspaper Wall Street Journal, was arrested at the end of March while reporting in Yekaterinburg in the Urals.

• Read also: Moscow hints that it may negotiate a prisoner exchange for released reporter Evan Hershkovich

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