American Reporter Evan Gershkovich to Face Trial in Russia for Espionage Charges
Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. citizen and reporter for The Wall Street Journal who has been detained in Russia for more than a year, will stand trial on allegations he secretly spied on Russia on behalf of the CIA.
Members of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested Mr. Gershkovich, 32, on March 29, 2023, while he was on assignment in Yekaterinburg for The Wall Street Journal. He has remained in Russian custody for more than a year since the arrest.
The FSB alleged that Mr. Gershkovich was attempting to obtain classified information concerning Russia at the time of his arrest.
The translated press statement from the Russian prosecutor general’s office said it had concluded Mr. Gershkovich, “on instructions from the CIA,” had collected secretive information about the activities of a Russian military equipment production and repair facility in the Sverdlovsk region. The prosecutor general’s office said it has since referred the case to the Sverdlovsk Regional Court.
The Russian prosecutor general’s announcement clears the way for Mr. Gershkovich’s case to go to trial. The trial start date wasn’t given.
Mr. Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of espionage.
Mr. Gershkovich was born in 1991 to Russian immigrants to the United States. He had bylines on several articles for The New York Times from 2016 to 2017. He also later worked for The Moscow Times from 2017 to 2020 and for Agence France-Presse (AFP) from 2020 onward until he joined The Wall Street Journal in January 2022.
“Russia’s latest move toward a sham trial is, while expected, deeply disappointing and still no less outrageous,” Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour and The Wall Street Journal’s Editor-in-Cheif Emma Tucker said in a joint press statement on June 13.
They added that the charges against Mr. Gershkovich were “false and baseless.”
“The Russian regime’s smearing of Evan is repugnant, disgusting, and based on calculated and transparent lies. Journalism is not a crime. Evan’s case is an assault on free press,” the statement continued. “We had hoped to avoid this moment and now expect the U.S. government to redouble efforts to get Evan released.”
Mr. Gershkovich is one of several Americans currently held in Russian custody.
Other U.S. citizens detained in Russia include Travis Leake, a musician who had been living in Russia for years and was arrested last year on drug-related charges; Marc Fogel, a teacher in Moscow, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison, also on drug charges; and dual national Ksenia Khavana.
Efforts to win the release of U.S. citizens detained in Russia are complicated by the strained relations between the two countries.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.