MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th August, 2020) The Russian Foreign Ministry warned compatriots about the threat of persecution by US law enforcement agencies and intelligence services when traveling abroad.
The ministry issued such alert in connection with the arrest of Russian citizen Yegor Kryuchkov on August 22 in the United States and in development of earlier similar warnings.
"This danger exists both in the United States itself and at the request of its authorities in third countries," the statement says.
"We are compelled to state that, despite our numerous calls for the normalization of interaction on the basis of the Russian-US treaty on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters of 1999, US law enforcement agencies are actively continuing arrests of Russians around the world. there are already 56 such cases, of which six occurred in 2019," the ministry added.
The situation is complicated by the fact that after the closure of Russia's general consulates in San Francisco and Seattle by the US authorities in 2017-2018, Russia completely lost its consular presence on the West Coast of the United States.
"This has seriously affected the ability to provide timely support to the Russians held there in prisons," the ministry said.
Russian diplomats "are making every effort to help compatriots in trouble, to ensure their legal rights and to return home as soon as possible," it said.
"However, we would like to recommend carefully weighing the existing risks of persecution from the US side when planning foreign trips. First of all, this applies to visits to the United States and countries that have extradition agreements with them," the ministry concluded.
