WASHIGNTON, 29 March: US President Joe Biden said on Friday the US will make Russia pay the price for using Americans as a bargaining chip.
Biden said this on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the arrest of Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich.
Gershkevich, 32, is the first post-Cold War American journalist to be arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB) on March 29 last year for espionage in Russia.
“As I have told Evan’s parents, I will never give up hope either. We will continue working every day to secure his release,” Biden said in a statement.
We have always rejected Russia’s use of Americans as a bargaining chip and will make them pay for it, Biden stressed.
Reuters news agency and the US administration denied that Gershkevich was a spy, while on the other hand, KGB’s alternative FSB says that Gershkevich was constantly trying to gain access to Russian military secrets.
He is currently being held in Moscow’s high-security Lefortovo prison under the supervision of the FSB, which has extended his detention until June 30.
