Zakharova answered Borel who complained about the arrested journalist: Why didn't he stand behind Assange?
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, criticized the EU's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, on Telegram for his comments about the arrested Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, the Guardian reports.
Borrell said that the EU condemns the detention of journalists and American citizens and that journalists should be able to carry out their profession freely. Zakharova commented on that: "Stand behind your words, Josep, stand up for Julian Assange and Marat Kassem." "Just for balance."
Assange, the co-founder of WikiLeaks, is in a London jail fighting a long legal battle to avoid extradition to the United States, which wants to try him for publishing more than 700.000 classified documents on the WikiLeaks website that relate of the activities of the US military, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kasem, the editor-in-chief of the Lithuanian edition of Sputnik, a Kremlin-backed news website, ended up in detention in Lithuania in January.
