Arrested for espionage. Russia announced on Thursday the arrest for “espionage” of an American journalist from the daily wall street journal, Evan Gershkovich, an unprecedented case in the recent history of the country in the context of repression since the offensive against Ukraine. Without substantiating this accusation, the Kremlin claimed that the reporter had been caught “in the act” and warned Washington against any form of reprisals against Russian media working in the United States.
On Thursday, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had “thwarted the illegal activity of the accredited correspondent (…) of the Moscow office of the American newspaper Wall Street Journal, the citizen of the United States Evan Gershkovich”, who was arrested in Yekaterinburg, in the Urals.
A charge punishable by ten to twenty years in prison
He is “suspected of espionage for the benefit of the United States” and of collecting information “on a Russian military-industrial complex company”, he added in a press release. This count is punishable by ten to twenty years in prison, according to article 276 of the Russian Criminal Code.
Before joining the American daily in 2022, Mr Gershkovich was a correspondent for AFP in Moscow, and before that, for the English-language newspaper Moscow Times. Perfectly Russian-speaking, the 31-year-old journalist is of Russian origin and his parents are settled in the United States.
THE wall street journal denies espionage charges
The American Daily wall street journal Thursday “vehemently refuted” the espionage charges brought by Moscow against its journalist Evan Gershkovich, arrested in Russia. “The Wall Street Journal vehemently refutes the FSB allegations and calls for the immediate release of Evan Gershkovich, a reliable and conscientious journalist,” the newspaper said in a statement. “We stand in solidarity with Evin and his family.”
“The Wall Street Journal is deeply concerned for the safety” of Evan Gershkovich, added the daily in a brief press release. The NGO Reporters Without Borders said it was “alarmed” by “what appears to be a reprisal measure: journalists must not be targeted! »
Russian diplomacy said that the journalist had been caught “hand in the bag”. “We hope there will be no” reprisals against the Russian media in the United States, added Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, assuring that the American journalist had been caught in “flagrante delicto” of spying.
A possible hostage-taking
Independent Russian analyst Tatiana Stanovaya, who heads the R.Politik analysis center, noted that Russia has recently tightened its spy legislation since its assault on Ukraine in February 2022. “The problem is that the new Russian legislation (…) makes it possible to imprison for 20 years anyone interested in military affairs, special military operations (in Ukraine), private military groups (like Wagner), the state of the army,” she wrote on Facebook.
But it also notes that the FSB was able to take the journalist “hostage” with a view to a possible exchange of prisoners. Russian-American exchanges have taken place a few times in recent years. Several Americans are still detained in Russia, one of whom, Paul Whelan, is serving a sixteen-year prison sentence for “espionage” in a case that the person concerned and Washington consider trumped up. He was arrested in 2018 and negotiations have been ongoing for several years to have him released.
The latest exchange between Moscow and Washington took place in December when Russia handed over American basketball player Brittney Griner, detained for drug trafficking, in exchange for the release of arms trafficker Victor Bout, imprisoned in the United States. Another American currently being held in Russia, Marc Fogel, a former diplomat who worked as a teacher at an American school in Moscow. He was sentenced in June 2022 to fourteen years in prison for “large-scale” cannabis trafficking. The Russian authorities claimed to have found marijuana and hashish oil in his luggage during a check at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow.
Reinforcement of repression against independent media
If the Russian press and journalists critical of the Kremlin are often the target of criminal proceedings in Russia, foreign journalists have been spared, Moscow having preferred to expel correspondents and toughen accreditation rules.
Since the launch of the Russian offensive against Ukraine, however, the authorities have accelerated the repression of the opposition and independent media, generally by using provisions of the Criminal Code punishing the fact of “discrediting the army”. At the same time, for foreign journalists, the conditions for issuing accreditations, on which visas depend, have been tightened. Foreign reporters are also sometimes followed by the security services during their reporting, especially outside Moscow. In this context, many Western media have greatly reduced their presence in Russia since the entry of Russian forces into Ukraine.