Russia arrests American reporter from Wall Street Journal on espionage charges

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

The Federal Security Service (FSB), the domestic security and counterintelligence agency that is the successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, said on Thursday that Evan Gershkovich was detained in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg while allegedly trying to obtain classified information.

The security service alleged that Gershkovich “acted on US orders to collect information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex that is a state secret.”

The FSB did not say when the arrests were made. Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of espionage. Gershkovich covered Russia and Ukraine as a correspondent in the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow bureau.

The FSB noted that he had accreditation from 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.”

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

The Wall Street Journal said it “rejects the allegations” and is seeking Gershkovich’s immediate release.

“Our solidarity goes out to Evan and his family,” the newspaper said.

Reporters Without Borders, a nonprofit organization that advocates for press freedom, tweeted that it was “fearful of what appears to be retaliation” for Gershkovich’s reporting.

Violation of independent media

Gershkovich is the first reporter for an American news outlet to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War. The arrest comes amid fierce tensions between Moscow and Washington over fighting in Ukraine.

Shortly after the invasion, Russia clamped down on domestic and foreign media, blocking the websites of the BBC, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, among others.

In May, a CBC News reporter was expelled from Russia after 44 years in Moscow.

Russia’s Novaya Gazeta newspaper, whose editor, Dmitry Muratov, is the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was also closed.

Gershkovich is the first American journalist to be arrested on espionage charges 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 without charge 20 days later in exchange for an employee of the Soviet Union’s UN mission who was arrested by the FBI.

Bill Browder, an investment fund manager who has worked to expose Russian corruption following the arrest and death in prison of his friend Sergei Magnitsky, described Gershkovich’s arrest on Thursday as “[Vladimir] Putin’s standard playbook.”

Ottawa-born Paul Whelan, who holds Canadian, American and Irish citizenship, is in the fourth year of a 16-year sentence on disputed espionage charges. Whelan is accused of receiving a thumb drive of classified information while traveling in Russia.

Russia in December released pro basketball player Brittney Griner, arrested days before the invasion of Ukraine and sentenced to prison for drug possession. Griner returned to the US as part of a prisoner swap that saw notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout released from American custody after several years.

Journals in their long history have seen journalists detained abroad. Gerald Sieb, until now the newspaper’s Washington bureau chief, was interrogated for several days in Iran in 1987 before being released.

Journalist Daniel Pearl was killed in 2002 after being kidnapped by Islamic extremists.