Russia Held Up an Ailing American Military Attaché From Leaving Moscow

Russian officials in August held up the evacuation from Moscow of a sick American military attaché to a hospital in Germany in the latest episode of a long-running campaign of harassment against American diplomats in Russia.
Diplomatic protocols allow for the fast evacuation of diplomats facing medical emergencies. But the departure of the plane sent to evacuate the attaché was delayed for hours for no apparent reason despite protests from embassy officials and the State Department in Washington, according to several Trump administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic issue that some other officials prefer to play down.
The Russians eventually relented, and the American, a uniformed officer, was safely evacuated, the officials said.
While State and Defense Department officials confirmed there was a medical incident in Russia, they declined to identify the officer and would not provide any details of the case or why he was being evacuated.

“There was a Department of Defense official from the U.S. Embassy in Russia that had to be medevacked from the U.S. Embassy out of Russia,” said Carla Gleason, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Military attaché offices operate openly in most American Embassies, and are managed by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. A webpage for the office in Moscow says that it “serves as the primary point of contact for all joint U.S.-Russia military activities and communications on defense matters.”
The State Department’s under secretary of state for management, Brian Bulatao, raised the episode with Russian officials in early September during a meeting in Vienna convened to discuss what one of the Trump administration officials called “bilateral irritants,” including the harassment of Americans. But it is not clear how the Russian officials responded.
Former American officials with experience in Russia said they could not recall a similar incident happening before and viewed the episode as potentially representing an escalation by Moscow. But they said it would also be consistent with years of intimidation tactics against American diplomats in the Russian capital.
“If we were bringing in a plane, that means this was really serious. That does not happen very often,” said Michael A. McFaul, who served as the American ambassador to Moscow during the Obama administration.

“When I was ambassador, we felt like we were under siege all the time,” Mr. McFaul said. He said that delaying a medical flight would fit “the kind of classic harassment that for many years now our people have been putting up with. It’s inexcusable, it’s horrible.”
Russia’s internal security service, which Vladimir V. Putin once directed, “wants foreign officials and their families to feel like they’re on enemy soil inside Russia,” said Daniel Hoffman, a former C.I.A. station chief who spent five years in Moscow. “They want officials and their families to be under duress,” and unable to focus on their jobs.
“The idea that they would interfere with medical care or put someone’s life or well-being at risk is taking the harassment for which Russia has been known since the days of the K.G.B. to a new and dangerous level,” Mr. Hoffman added.
Adding to the diplomatic strain is the Russian detention since December of Paul N. Whelan, a former United States Marine whom the Russians arrested in Moscow and charged with spying. Mr. Whelan, who denies the charges, faces up to 20 years in prison.
And in mid-October, Russian authorities removed three American diplomats from a train headed to an Arctic town near the site of a recent nuclear accident. The State Department said they “were on official travel and had properly notified Russian authorities of their travel.”
It is also a sensitive moment for the American Embassy in Moscow. The American ambassador to Russia, Jon M. Huntsman Jr., left his post last month, and President Trump has nominated John Sullivan, the deputy secretary of state, to succeed him.