Bureaucratic procedure or cold war movie scenario?

Two American journalists were detained for several hours by Russian authorities on 17^th of October and expelled from the country. Joe Bergantino, who is currently the executive director of NECIR (New England Center for Investigative Reporting), and his colleague Randy Covington, the Newsplex director, visited Russia for a journalism workshop organized by the U.S. State Department. After spending some days in Moscow, they went to St.Petersburg for a two-day training with 14 Russian journalists.

According to what Bergantino said, while they were teaching reporting techniques to journalists, some immigration officers walked into the classroom and asked for their passports and visas. At the beginning it seemed an ordinary inspection, but then Bergantino and Covington were taken to court and ordered to leave the country. In fact, the judge claimed that the touristic visa they had didn't allow them to conduct the workshop and that their stay in Russia was therefore illegal. The two journalists refused to sign the police statement and they flew back to the U.S. on the following day.

“Was it really necessary to replay a scene from a tired, old cold war movie?” This is the question that Bergantino addresses to the Russian President Vladimir Putin in a letter he published on the NECIR website afterwards. Of course, the underlying issue regards the real matter at stake. Apparently, the journalists were detained due to a mere bureaucratic procedure. The judge herself invited them to come back to Russia with a proper visa whenever they want. But, as Bergantino points out in his letter, the fact was probably a sort of subtle message by Putin to national and international journalists, trying to show he can control them.