Wall Street Journal reporter arrested in Russia on spying charges
A Wall Street Journal reporter has been arrested in Russia on suspicion of espionage, the first time an American journalist has been detained on accusations by Moscow of spying since the Cold War, CNN reports.
Russia’s main security service, the FSB, claimed Thursday that Evan Gershkovich, a correspondent based in Moscow, had been trying to obtain state secrets. The Wall Street Journal has categorically rejected those allegations.
The US newspaper “vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter,” it said in a statement. “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”
A Russian district court in Moscow said Thursday that Gershkovich would be detained until May 29.
Gershkovich’s arrest comes amid escalating tensions between the United States and Russia over President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
The FSB said Gershkovich was detained in Yekaterinburg, on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains, and claimed he was “trying to obtain secret information” relating to “the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”
The FSB said the reporter, who is accredited by Russia’s foreign ministry, was “acting on the instructions of the American side.” The US State Department began tracking Gershkovich’s arrest Wednesday afternoon before the news broke publicly, according to two US officials.
Gershkovich covers Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union, according to his biography on the Wall Street Journal’s website. He previously worked for news agency Agence France-Presse, the Moscow Times and the New York Times.
