(@ChaudhryMAli88)

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th October, 2018) The Russian Embassy in the United States commented on the US court charges against the Treasury Department senior official over disclosing information about Russian diplomats to media by calling it a planned defamation campaign against the diplomatic mission.

On Wednesday, a US court charged Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a senior adviser at the US Department of the Treasury, with illegally disclosing to the media suspicious activity reports (SARs) pertaining to the detained Russian national Mariia Butina.

"From the very beginning, it was clear to us that this is a planned campaign aimed at fueling the Russophobic hysteria and defaming the embassy and the Russian diplomats.

We still expect the State Department to provide us with an answer to our requests and to ensure the normal conditions of work for foreign diplomatic missions in the United States," the embassy said in a statement.

"The embassy has asked the State Department to work on this issue and end the disclosure of the embassy employees' personal data and information about bank transactions of funds allocated for the Russian foreign missions performing their official functions," the embassy added.