U.S. President Barack Obama was informed of the situation around the Russian spy scandal before he met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday.
Gibbs said during a briefing Obama was "fully and appropriately" informed of the situation before he met with Medvedev last Thursday, though the leaders did not discuss the issue.
Gibbs added that the law enforcement made the arrests and "acted appropriately."
Moscow admitted 11 members of an alleged spy ring arrested in the United States were Russian nationals, but denied they had acted against the United States.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said they were "Russian citizens who found themselves on U.S. territory at different times."
The U.S. Department of Justice said on Monday 11 people had been charged as "unlawful agents of the Russian Federation within the United States."
U.S. authorities said the case was "the result of a multi-year investigation conducted by the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the Counterespionage Section and the Office of Intelligence within the Justice Department's National Security Division."
Some of the suspects had been under surveillance since January and part of their correspondence with Moscow had been intercepted and decoded.
WASHINGTON, June 29 (RIA Novosti)
