Russia’s security service arrested an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal on espionage charges, the first time a U.S. correspondent has been detained on spying accusations since the Cold War.
Russian authorities accused him of trying to gather state secrets “biological topics” at a weapons factory. However, it did not name the factory, identify its location, or provide any evidence for these claims.
Rather, Russia simply described its claims as “established.” The Journal has denied the allegations.
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“It has been established that E. Gershkovich, acting on an assignment from the American side, was gathering information classified as a state secret about the activity of one of the enterprises of Russia’s military-industrial complex,” the nation’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement, according to a translation by the New York Post.
Russia also said, according to Google Translate, “The American is suspected of collecting intelligence information on biological topics directed against the security of the Russian Federation.”
Evan Gershkovich was detained in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg while allegedly trying to obtain classified information, the FSB claimed Thursday.
The service, which is the top domestic security agency and main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, alleged that Gershkovich “was acting on the U.S. orders to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex that constitutes a state secret.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday: “It is not about a suspicion, is it about the fact that he was caught red-handed.”
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The newspaper hit back.
“The Wall Street Journal vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter, Evan Gershkovich,” the newspaper said.
“We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”
Other experts were also critical of the charges.
“It looks like they took a hostage,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Financial Times.
According to FT —
A local media report said Gershkovich was detained on Wednesday, when FSB agents stormed into a local restaurant and took a man with a sweater pulled over his head into a minibus.
Reporter Evan Gershkovich’s last article published 2 days ago for the Wall Street Journal before being arrested in Russia.
He is believed to be the first American reporter to be held as an accused spy in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.https://t.co/PRFRGqjUaU
— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) March 30, 2023
The arrest comes at a moment of bitter tensions between the West and Moscow over Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and as the Kremlin intensifies a crackdown on opposition activists, independent journalists, and civil society groups. The sweeping campaign of repression is unprecedented since the Soviet era and the dawn of the internet.
Earlier this week, a Russian court convicted a father over his child’s criticism of the war and sentenced him to two years in prison while his 13-year-old daughter was sent to an orphanage.
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Gershkovich is the first American reporter to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since September 1986, when Nicholas Daniloff, a Moscow correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, was arrested by the KGB. Daniloff was released without charge 20 days later in a swap for an employee of the Soviet Union’s United Nations mission who was arrested by the FBI, also on spying charges.
At a hearing Thursday, a Moscow court quickly ruled to keep Gershkovich behind bars pending the investigation, according to the official Telegram channel of the capital’s courts.
While previous American detainees — like basketball star Brittney Griner — have been freed in prisoner swaps, a top Russian official said it was way too early to talk about any such deal. Plus, foreign nationals detained on espionage charges have historically faced difficulties with prisoner swaps. For example, the U.S. and Russia have yet to announce a deal to free U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.
Espionage charges in Russia carries a maximum jail term of 20 years, according to the BBC.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.