Russia condemns the detention of a Russian Foreign Ministry employee at a Paris airport as inadmissible, TASS reported citing Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
"Of course, we condemn such French moves and we view them as an inadmissible attitude toward our officials, our diplomats," Peskov told reporters.
By doing so, Paris intensifies the already strained relations with Moscow, the Russian presidential spokesman stressed.
According to Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, a member of the official Russian delegation was detained by French border guards, without providing any explanation, at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport on April 6. A phone and a laptop were seized from her. The Russian embassy in France promptly dispatched a consular officer to the airport, who had to wait nearly seven hours before gaining access to his colleague, Zakharova added.
After Russia summoned the French ambassador over the detention, the female diplomat was finally permitted to enter the country, but she had spent almost 24 hours at the airport, Zakharova lamented.