Russia arrests ESC reporters on espionage charges

MOSCOW, Russia – Russia’s top security agency has arrested an American reporter for the Wall Street Journal on espionage charges, the first time since the Cold War that a US correspondent has been put behind bars on espionage charges.

The Federal Security Service said on Thursday that Evan Gershkovich was arrested in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg while allegedly trying to obtain classified information.

The Wall Street Journal said it “vehemently denies the allegations” and calls for Gershkovich’s immediate release. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family,” the newspaper said.

The arrest comes amid bitter tensions between the West and Moscow his war in Ukraine.

Gershkovich is the first American reporter to be arrested for espionage in Russia since September 1986, when Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for US News and World Report, was arrested by the KGB. He was released 20 days later without charge in exchange for an employee of the United Nations Mission to the Soviet Union who was arrested by the FBI.

The FSB, the supreme successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, claimed that Gershkovich “acted on US orders to gather information on the activities of one of the companies of the Russian military-industrial complex that constitute a state secret.”

Authorities did not say when the arrest took place. If convicted of espionage, Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison.

Gershkovich is a correspondent in the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau covering Russia, Ukraine and other states of the former Soviet Union.

The FSB noted that he was accredited by the Russian Foreign Ministry to work as a journalist, but Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Gershkovich used his journalistic credentials as a cover for “activities unrelated to journalism.” .

Its latest report from Moscow, released earlier this week, focused on the slowdown in Russia’s economy amid Western sanctions imposed when Russian troops invaded Ukraine last year.

Gershkovich’s arrest follows a December swap involving WNBA star Brittney Griner was freed after 10 months behind bars in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

another american, Paul Whelana corporate security executive in Michigan, has been jailed in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and the US government have called baseless.