US threats will ‘reap whirlwind’: Moscow

Russia said on Friday that if the United States threatened Moscow over its arrest of Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter Evan Gershkovich, it would reap a "whirlwind", the state-owned news agency RIA reported.

US President Joe Biden urged Moscow on Friday to "Let him go", after his administration said on Thursday it was unacceptable for Russia to target US citizens and urged all Americans in Russia to leave at once, reports Reuters.

The WSJ denied that Gershkovich was a spy.

The WSJ's board of opinion editors called in a piece published Thursday afternoon for the expulsion of Russia's ambassador to the United States, as well as "all Russian journalists working here," describing the move as "the minimum to expect."

"The timing of the arrest looks like a calculated provocation to embarrass the US and intimidate the foreign press still working in Russia," it added, according to AFP.

The Journal's editor in chief, Emma Tucker, sent a note to the newspaper's staff Friday, saying that "we will carry on doing everything in our power to secure Evan's release."

"Your safety and security are what matters most to me, and we will continue to protect that no matter where you may be reporting from," she added, AFP adds.

Speaking to reporters before leaving to view tornado damage in Mississippi, Biden said that expelling Russian journalists was "not the plan right now."