MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's Foreign Ministry is protesting attacks on three journalists of the country's Sputnik news agency in Turkey and their subsequent detention.

Government-owned Sputnik, which operates news websites in about 30 languages, said angry mobs tried to break into the apartments of three staffers in the Turkish capital Ankara on Saturday night, threatening physical violence and demanding they stop their work.

Sputnik said the assailants accused the journalists, who are Turkish citizens, of being Russian spies.

The journalists went to police to report the attacks and the agency lost contact with them, Sputnik said.

“The attacks on employees of the Turkish bureau of Sputnik and their detentions is a gross violation of the rights of journalists,” the Russia Foreign Ministry said in a statement Sunday, and called on Turkish authorities to intervene. The media group Rossiya Segodnya, which includes Sputnik, called for the journalists' immediate release.

Turkish authorities haven't commented on the matter.