US 'deeply disappointed' as Russia rejects request to visit detained reporter in prison

Russia said on Thursday it had rejected the request in response to Washington's refusal to grant visas to a group of Russian journalists.

The United States is "deeply disappointed" by Russia's rejection of a U.S. embassy request to visit detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in prison, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters on Friday.

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands in a glass cage in a courtroom at the Moscow City Court, in Moscow, Russia. (AP file photo)

Russia said on Thursday it had rejected the request in response to Washington's refusal to grant visas to a group of Russian journalists.

Gershkovich was arrested last month and accused of espionage, a charge he has denied. The United States has designated him as wrongfully detained.

Russia's FSB security service arrested Gershkovich on March 29 in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg on espionage charges that carry a possible 20-year prison sentence for collecting what it said were state secrets about the military industrial complex.

The Kremlin has said Gershkovich, the first US journalist detained in Russia on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War, was caught "red-handed".