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Showing concern to the fate of Alexander Kashin, U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns expressed his personal sympathies over ‘the sad incident’ and promised to forward an official request to the US State Department on Kashin’s case.

Kashin, 31, suffered a severe neck injury and was paralyzed from below the armpits down in the October 1998 accident when the car in which he was a passenger collided with former U.S. Consul General Douglas Kent’s Chevy sport utility vehicle. Police said Kent was responsible for the collision but Russian authorities failed to prosecute Kent criminally because of his diplomatic immunity. The diplomat left Vladivostok shortly after the accident.

According to the recent ruling of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals on August 10 Kent has immunity and may not be sued civilly in U.S. courts by the Russian citizen crippled in the 1998 car wreck. The story can be found in our archive:
http://vn.vladnews.ru/issue531/Crime_watch/Immunity_shelters_former_US_Consul_from_Russian_invalid

On Tuesday Kashin told the Vladivostok newspaper reporters that it was his first meeting with a US official. “For me it was enough to receive his words of support and promise of assistance,” Kashin said.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns arrived for a two-day visit to Vladivostok on August 25 as a part of his first business trip around the Russia’s Far East. Prior to Vladivostok, William Burns visited Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk where he opened a US consul branch office. In Vladivostok the ambassador met with Primorye administration officials, U.S. exchange program alumni, opened the exhibition of Russian and American sculptors in the Arseniev Museum and attended the opening of the fourth international film festival.