The State Department said publicly on Friday that Russian officials are lying about several incidents between U.S. diplomats and Russian security officers, but refused to be more specific, and said the U.S. wants to handle the problem without involving the press.
“We’ve seen several comments by Russian officials over the last several days, which they know all too well are inaccurate,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
This week, the Washington Post reported that U.S. diplomats are being harassed by Russian authorities more frequently over the last few years, and that the Obama administration has pressured Russia to knock it off.
On Wednesday, the Post reported that a member of the Russian Federal Security Service beat up a U.S. diplomat who was trying to enter the U.S. embassy. Russian officials have said the diplomat hit a sentry as he tried to barge into the embassy.
Kirby refused to say if that specific explanation is true or not, but said many Russian comments from the past few days have not been true.
When pressed again, he repeated that “many of their public comments are inaccurate,” but said he would not get into specifics, or point out which ones were not correct.
Stating openly that Russian officials are lying is a far cry from the “reset” that the Obama administration sought with Russia under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But relations have gone downhill over the last few years, particularly given Russia’s annexation of Crimea over U.S. objections, and Russia’s effort to work at cross-purposes from the U.S. in Syria.
The U.S. has publicly blamed Russia for months for propping up Syrian President Bashar Assad, thus making it harder to rid Syria of Islamic State forces.
Meanwhile, Russia continues to harass U.S. diplomats posted in Moscow, Kirby said.
“I can say that we continue to be very troubled by the way our employees have been treated over the past couple of years,” he said. “Harassment and surveillance of our diplomatic personnel in Moscow by security personnel and traffic police have increased significantly, and we continue to find this unacceptable.
“The United States is not interested in having a public debate on the issue,” Kirby added. “We believe this is best handled in private, government-to-government discussions.”
