Washington: The United States of America has complained to Russia that its diplomats are being harassed and intimidated in Moscow.
US Secretary of state John Kerry has already discussed this issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin in March this year.
According to State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau, the incidents of harassment and surveillance of US diplomats by security personnel and traffic police in Moscow have increased significantly.
Elizabeth Trudeau made these remarks today while commenting about a report by The Washington Post on Monday that described a series of actions by Russian security and intelligence services, including following diplomats and their family members, appearing at social functions uninvited and paying for negative media stories.
Some diplomats said intruders had broken into their homes at night to rearrange furniture, turn on lights and even defecate on a living room carpet, the newspaper reported, citing officials as saying Russian intelligence officers once broke into the US defense attache's Moscow house and killed his dog. "We see an increase and we take it seriously," Trudeau said on Monday.
Moscow accuses the United States of harassing its own diplomats and says it takes reciprocal measures only in response. "We have recently felt a significant increase in pressure on the Russian embassy and consulates general of our country in the United States," Russia's TASS news agency reported Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying last week.
Russian diplomats "regularly become the objects of provocations by the American secret services, face obstacles in making official contacts and other restrictions," such as travel, she added. Trudeau denied the accusation on Monday. "Russia's claims of harassment are without foundation," she said.
State Department officials say Russian harassment has increased significantly since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014, which prompted Western sanctions against Moscow, The Washington Post reported. Kerry spoke to Putin about the matter during a visit to Moscow after Washington stripped five Russian honorary consuls of their credentials in January in response to the harassment of its diplomats.
