It took his office ten long years to make a case against 49 Russian diplomats and their spouses charged with scamming Medicaid, a government health care programme for low-income families, out of $1.5 million over a decade. All of them worked in New York either at the Russian mission to the UN, the Russian consulate or the Russian trade representation office when they committed the alleged fraud.

But Bharara could not lay his hands on any of them. For by the time he filed charges just a week before he chose to act against Khobragade, only 11 of them remained in the US. But none has been taken into custody as they all have diplomatic immunity.

Ten of them are diplomats working with the Russian mission to the UN and their spouses, and one is now stationed at the Russian embassy in Washington. But at the time of the charged offences, he was employed at the consulate in New York.

Harf Thursday suggested that Khobragade, who has been transferred to India's permanent mission to the UN, would not have "retroactive" immunity after her change of status from consular officer to diplomat. If so, how come, the Russian diplomat working in Washington is roaming free when the offence he is charged with took place when he worked at the Russian consulate in New York?

"Diplomacy should be about extending hands, not picking pockets in the host country," said Bharara at a press conference announcing the charges which have next to no chance of moving forward.

But Harf was more circumspect in saying they were still "reviewing the charges" and "the relationship is much bigger and deeper and broader and more complicated than that."

Like in Khobragade's case, Bharara's actions sparked outrage in Russia.

Rejecting the charges, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow had many claims against the behaviour of U.S. diplomats in Moscow but had preferred not to bring them into the public sphere.

It has been two weeks since the charges were filed against the Russians. But to date Moscow has not waived their immunity nor has Washington asked them to leave!

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