MOSCOW. Jan 16 (Interfax) - Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on the Rossiya-1 (VGTRK) channel on Sunday that U.S. security services had tried to recruit Russian diplomats several years ago when one of the Russian mission's employees was buying medicines for former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov.
It was possible to buy the medicine needed by the statesman only from the United States, she said, adding that the former prime minister's family and friends raised about $10,000 and that the Russian diplomat was planning to buy the medicine officially, through a practitioner.
"He was approached by U.S. security service officers, who took him to the basement of a store where there was no cell phone service. He was unable to contact the Consulate, the Embassy or colleagues. He was kept there for an hour. The things they told him looked like a recruitment attempt rather than an appropriate conversation: they intimidated him by saying that he had been caught selling pharmaceuticals," Zakharova said.
"The doctor who was asked to procure the medicines is still working, and U.S. security services never took any action against him," she said.
"The medicines were seized, and the money was never given back," the spokesperson said.
The situation was resolved in a later period, after the U.S. Department of State interfered, and everything was done to bring the medicine to Russia as soon as possible, but "time was lost," she said.