By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Russian authorities on Thursday said they had arrested a U.S. journalist with The Wall Street Journal on spying charges.
Evan Gershkovich was detained in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg on suspicion of “espionage in the interests of the American government,” the Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement, which was reported by state media.
The FSB accused Gershkovich of collecting “information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”
If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.
Kremlin spokesman Dimtry Peskov told a news briefing that Gershkovich had been “caught red handed.”
“We are not talking about suspicions, but about the fact that he was detained red-handed,” Peskov said, adding that the arrest was up to the FSB.
The Wall Street Journal said in a statement that it “vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB and seeks the immediate release of our trusted and dedicated reporter.” It added: “We stand in solidarity with Evan and his family.”
Gershkovich is a journalist covering Russia, Ukraine and the former Soviet Union.
He was previously a reporter for Agence France-Presse and the Moscow Times and a news assistant at the New York Times, according to his author page on The Wall Street Journal’s website.
Gershkovich, 31, speaks Russian. His parents live in the United States but are originally from the former Soviet Union.
His most recent article, which was published earlier this week and co-bylined, featured the headline: “Russia’s Economy Is Starting to Come Undone.”
Gershkovich is the first journalist with an American outlet to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War.
His arrest comes amid high tensions between Moscow and Washington over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and as the Kremlin cracks down internally on free speech.
