By Dmitry Antonov and Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Wednesday that relations with Washington were so confrontational that Russian citizens should not visit the United States, Canada and some EU countries in coming weeks because they risked being “hunted” down by U.S. authorities.
Russian and U.S. diplomats say the relationship is worse than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the two Cold War superpowers came closest to intentional nuclear war, due to a confrontation over the Ukraine war.
“In the context of the increasing confrontation in Russian-American relations, which are teetering on the verge of rupture due to the fault of Washington, trips to the United States of America privately or out of official necessity are fraught with serious risks,” Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, told a news briefing.
“We urge you to continue to refrain from trips to the United States of America and its allied satellite states, including, first of all, Canada and, with a few exceptions, European Union countries, during these holidays,” she said.
Both Moscow and Washington say their citizens have been wrongfully imprisoned and their diplomats harassed increasingly as relations soured, though they both defend convictions by their own justice systems.
Some Russians are in jail in the United States and dozens of U.S. citizens are in jail in Russia, convicted of a range of crimes ranging from espionage to hooliganism – even after the biggest Russian-U.S. prisoner swap since the Cold War.
“Our citizens have become the subject of hunting by American authorities and U.S. special services,” Zakharova said, without elaborating.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told NBC News on Tuesday that Russia would “definitely be prepared to consider” another prisoner swap, similar to the August exchange that involved Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and ex-U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
The Kremlin said the outgoing administration of U.S. President Joe Biden was dialling up the tension with Russia ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration – and has warned of the risks of a wider war.
“It is obvious that the current administration will follow this path and will try to leave this legacy. How and in what way – we will see together,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The United States and its Western allies have supported Ukraine with hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons and aid, and have promised to defeat Russian forces and what Western leaders cast as an imperial-style land grab by Moscow.
President Vladimir Putin says an arrogant West led by the United States ignored Russia’s post-Soviet interests, tried to pull Ukraine into its orbit since 2014 and then used Ukraine to fight a proxy war aimed at weakening – and ultimately destroying – Russia.
The White House has said it is merely defending U.S. interests in supplying weapons to Ukraine. Trump has vowed to swiftly end the war and has said he has good relations with Putin, who argues that parts of Ukraine are rightfully Russian, a position which Kyiv rejects.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Guy FaulconbridgeEditing by Andrew Osborn and Philippa Fletcher)
