On Saturday night, groups of aggressive people, who were shouting nationalist slogans, insults and threats, tried to force their way into the homes of three Sputnik Turkey employees in Ankara. According to Sputnik Turkey, the attackers tried to break the doors and were shouting "Turkey for Turks," "Traitors," and "Russian spies." The attackers managed to get away before the police arrived. The incident did not result in any injures.

The chief editor of Sputnik Turkey Mahir Boztepe has been detained in the agency's Istanbul office, just hours after Turkish security forces apprehended Sputnik staff members in Ankara, Sputnik and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan reported.

Simonyan previously reported that Turkish police officers arrived at the Istanbul office and detained another Sputnik employee.

Turkish police also searched Sputnik office in Istanbul without disclosing reasons. In the Istanbul office of the Russian news agency, police officers made copies of hard drives from computers Sunday afternoon.

On the other hand, three journalists working for Sputnik in the Turkish capital were freed on Sunday after giving testimony. Turkey Editor-in-Chief Mahir Boztepe, who was detained in Istanbul, has also been released from custody.

Maxime Durnev from the Istanbul office of the news agency said that their office was raided and searched in connection with the news article titled “The ‘Stolen Province’: Why Turkey was given a corner of Syria by France 80 years ago”.

Released Sputnik Turkey journalists called absurd the charges brought against them after the detention, in particular, those related to an article they even had not written.

"We were completely absurdly charged over an article that we did not write and have nothing to do with it. We were also told about some video on Youtube, which is allegedly linked with the support of terrorism, but I didn’t even see it and I don’t understand what it was about. After our explanations, the prosecutor did not find our fault," one of the released journalists said.

Sputnik has appealed to the United Nations, OSCE and UNESCO in connection with the attack. The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned the attack as a blatant violation of the journalists' rights. The OSCE representative on freedom of the media Harlem Désir has also condemned the incident.

The Russian news agency reported that Russian PM Lavrov called on his counterpart Cavusoglu to resolve situation around Sputnik Turkey journalists as soon as possible.

The Russian side emphasized the necessity for a speedy resolution of the situation around journalists and employees of the Sputnik news agency in Ankara and ensuring their safety," the statement said.

"Yesterday evening, in Ankara, there was an attempt to assault homes of three Sputnik Turkey journalists. People who gathered before their homes threatened and insulted our colleagues. The journalists who went to the police to complain about the attempted assault were detained ... As professional organisations, we once again urge the authorities to refrain from making journalists their targets. The detained journalists must be released," the Journalists Union of Turkey together with six other organisations said in a joint statement.