Russia has arrested a Wall Street Journal reporter for espionage. It’s an escalatory move that shows how much the US-Russia relationship has broken down, and the risks of publishing independent journalism in the country.
Evan Gershkovich is a 31-year-old American citizen who is accredited as a journalist with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was reporting in the industrial city of Yekaterinburg, about 900 miles east of Moscow, and arrested by the Federal Security Service (FSB), which said, without evidence, that he was “acting on the instructions of the American side,” and “collected information constituting a state secret about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex.”
The Journal “vehemently denies the allegations from the FSB,” it said in a statement, and stands “in solidarity with Evan and his family.”
The more that the US and Russia’s ongoing confrontation over the invasion of Ukraine mirrors a Cold War confrontation, the more likely that reporters who genuinely cover the security aspects are vulnerable to this type of hostage situation. Gershkovich is reportedly the first American journalist arrested in Russia on espionage charges in the post-Cold War era.
The timing is also notable given that last week the US had indicted suspected Russian spy Sergey Cherkasov, who the Justice Department says was operating as Victor Ferreira, for his activities in Washington. It “immediately makes me think the Russians detained him because they think they’re going to try to swap him for Cherkasov in some way, or that it’s retribution for that,” says Danielle Gilbert, a security scholar at Dartmouth College who researches hostage diplomacy.
For now, US diplomats in Russia are almost certainly working to meet with Gershkovich in person. The US has been working for years to secure the release of Paul Whelan, an American security consultant arrested in 2018 in Russia on espionage charges.
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